Just how pointless and stupid our climate reductions efforts are

[CdnFox]

50 minutes ago, herbie said:

I said nuclear is more expensive, it always has been because of long timelines and massive safety precautions.

It's still more expensive than coal BUT it's far far less so than it used to be.

Modern nuclear reactors don't require anything remotely close to the same safety measures. They are designed so that if you don't take action to keep them going they go out - the reverse of old ones.  So there's no chance of a runaway. And Thier modular nature makes repair and maintenance vastly easier.  They also produce a very very small amount of radioactive material that you're stuck with, most of the waste can be reused.

these ain't 3 mile island designs.

50 minutes ago, herbie said:

We can use those now, whereas 10-20 years from now to get nukes online. Do it faster and cheaper and isn't that the whole root of the proclem - no one likes to have to spend money?

Nope.  Nothing else produces the necessary constant supply of clean energy as fast.  You can't power a city with solar or even come close.  Wind has it's own environmental issues.

If people really cared about the environment they'd have been insisting that provinces who don't have Hydro be funded for nukes years ago.

Edited June 4, 2023 by CdnFox

[herbie]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

You can't power a city with solar or even come close.  Wind has it's own environmental issues

It can't yet it has and does?
And nuclear is still the most expensive. Less expensive than it was, only because they're considering smaller plants.
And you think anyone will stop whining about paying the carbon tax if they dedicated every penny to building nukes? Not a chance in hell, they're opposed to doing something about greenhouse gases unless someone else pays. That's obvious in this thread.

[WestCanMan]

 

3 hours ago, CdnFox said:

You can't power a city with solar or even come close.  Wind has it's own environmental issues.

22 minutes ago, herbie said:

It can't yet it has and does?

Thanks for comin' out herbie ?

Name some cities that are totally powered by wind and solar herbie...

 

I can tell you all in advance that herbie can't answer that question, because it's just another one of his outrageous claims that he thinks that he can just slide by everyone. 

The truth is that there are some cities that are powered mostly by renewables, like 70% or more, but the majority of that renewable power is usually hydroelectric. 

There are a lot of cities in Latin America that are majority renewable energy, but again that's because of hydro power, not wind and solar. Those cities also don't have the energy requirements of northern cities because of their climate.

Edited June 4, 2023 by WestCanMan

[CdnFox]

22 minutes ago, herbie said:

It can't yet it has and does?

You can't and it doesn't.  Even attempts to move mostly to that kind of power such as in cali failed miserably and they're not close to fully converted.

Storing the energy is the problem.  Wind and sun are simply not available in predictable enough fashions to be reliable power on their own and we have no effective way of storing the large amounts of energy we'd need to in order to make that work.

22 minutes ago, herbie said:

And nuclear is still the most expensive. Less expensive than it was, only because they're considering smaller plants.

You are BADLY uneducated on the subject.  No, not because of smaller plants but because the old designs needed massive cooling AND massive safety systems that were extremely costly. Those are no longer needed, so even a plant of the same size would be vastly less expensive.

Going to modular systems doesn't really save cost as much as it allows you to scale so you don't need to build for too far in the future, AND it makes repair and replacement easy which is something that was severely limited in old reactors where ALL of the power production had to stop to do maintenance.

22 minutes ago, herbie said:

And you think anyone will stop whining about paying the carbon tax if they dedicated every penny to building nukes?

Honestly i suspect they would. At least it would be going towards something that actually worked and there'd be an end in sight. Within x number of years we'd have enough reactors to get us started and we could move on from there.  But - what you may not realize is that it would only take a few years of carbon tax and the gst we charge on it to make a very serious start on that.  We've wasted all that money so far and achieved NOTHING other than to line the feds pockets.  If you told people "We do this for 5 years and then we're done" and people would jump on it.  The provinces that need it can still kick in money - they'll make it back selling the electricity and they'd pay for their power plants any way. 

22 minutes ago, herbie said:

Not a chance in hell, they're opposed to doing something about greenhouse gases unless someone else pays.

No - that's the liberals - except they're also not willing to do anything about greenhouse gases even if someone else DOES pay - they just pocket the money and do nothing.
 

If you were serious about the environment, if you cared at all about greenhouse gasses - if you wanted to do ANYTHING other than posture, you'd push like hell for nuclear power.

So that tells me you aren't and you don't.

[CdnFox]

17 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

 

Nhanks for comin' out herbie ?

Name some cities that are totally powered by wind and solar herbie...

I believe his lego village is currently entirely solar, so we just have to scale that up.

17 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

 

I can tell you all in advance that herbie can't answer that question, because it's just another one of his outrageous claims that he thinks that he can just slide by everyone. 

The truth is that there are some cities that are powered mostly by renewables, like 70% or more, but the majority of that renewable power is usually hydroelectric. 

 

Obviously.  And a lot of people discount hydro because of the environmental damage the dams do. But even if you add it there's only so much of it. Sure - bc and quebec don't have a lot of oil fired electricity but a lot of the other provinces do.

Even california, with strong natural winds and massive amounts of sunlight, has failed miserably to move to renewable only.  They DID manage to generate 100 percent of their power by renewables.... once.  One one day.  for an hour.

The rest of the time they don't and even worse - their peak usage time comes just after the sun sets and solar isn't available. 

We can still use solar and wind to help offset the costs of other power and to reduce our need for other power - but we're not getting away solar only any time soon.  Especailly in the north.

And if we did the environmentalists would probably say we're soaking up too much of the sun's energy and it's contributing to global cooling or some damn thing.... 

[WestCanMan]

36 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

I believe his lego village is currently entirely solar, so we just have to scale that up.

Obviously.  And a lot of people discount hydro because of the environmental damage the dams do. But even if you add it there's only so much of it. Sure - bc and quebec don't have a lot of oil fired electricity but a lot of the other provinces do.

Even california, with strong natural winds and massive amounts of sunlight, has failed miserably to move to renewable only.  They DID manage to generate 100 percent of their power by renewables.... once.  One one day.  for an hour.

The rest of the time they don't and even worse - their peak usage time comes just after the sun sets and solar isn't available. 

We can still use solar and wind to help offset the costs of other power

The amount of lying about solar and wind power here rivals that of covid and the vaccines. 

[CdnFox]

57 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

The amount of lying about solar and wind power here rivals that of covid and the vaccines. 

herbie probably thinks the vaccine is solar powered

[Army Guy]

7 hours ago, herbie said:

I said no such thing. I said nuclear is more expensive, it always has been because of long timelines and massive safety precautions.
One of the same arguments used against other green options until that situation reversed in the last few years. We can use those now, whereas 10-20 years from now to get nukes online. Do it faster and cheaper and isn't that the whole root of the proclem - no one likes to have to spend money?

Nukes are going to have to be considered for long term solutions though. And banning stupid wastes of energy like bitcoin mining.

 

There are plenty of stories in the media on small nuclear reactors (SMRS) that would be a cheaper solution to many power generation plants we have now, Take a look at the latest Hydro plant in Muskrat falls where it is approaching 13 billion and still not completed...That would build dozens of MSR plants for the northern communities, not to mention it could take off those coal fired generation plants across the nation...

SMR plants no longer need massive construction time lines, and can be built in half that time...with half the funding...

We are putting the cart before the horse building EV cars with not enough infra structure to service them all, and yet no major investment is being made in that direction, just billions being poured into battery plants for ev's . 

This government has wasted 100"s of billions, and we are fall farther behind our green economy, we had a chance at this industry of green energy years ago, and we dropped the ball... and now most provinces power companies don't want to pay customer for generating power...they want it for free...new Policies need to be made, to promote further growth in solar, or geothermal.

[herbie]

On 6/4/2023 at 9:22 AM, I am Groot said:

At that point it doesn't really matter.

But I'd rather swim in 90% than 75% if I'll be a broke assed homeless guy with the 75% but be comfortably middle-class with the 90%.

My point entirely. Don't care if they're swimming in p!ss, only that it will cost something to clean it up. And at this point in time nuclear is more expensive and takes longer to implement. Which doesn't mean we abandon that option. But to compare the cost of Quebec's Hydro Project or BC's SiteC? WTF do you think nukes cost? How many small reactors would you need to compare to the output of either project?

And the forum trolls habit of claiming I posted the exact opposite of what I did and that if I suggest A might be better than B then I'm opposing B entirely merely shows the childlike lack of communication and argumentative skills possessed by many here.

16 hours ago, Army Guy said:

We are putting the cart before the horse building EV cars with not enough infra structure to service them all, and yet no major investment is being made in that direction, just billions being poured into battery plants for ev's . 

We'd be even stupider not to build them as 90% of the cars we build in Canada are exported and EVs are the growth market. If you think about the total number of EV cars built today and of charging them all in Canada today, or the number of EVs there might be used tomorrow and the infrastructure today, you could justify your claim.
You can't if you take the number of EV cars in use here today and the infrastructure today, nor can you predict tomorrow's sales and tomorrow's power.

You want to talk about waste, then point the finger where it belongs at the makers. Blackmailing everyone. Give us subsidies, weaken your labour laws, hand out grants, give us tax holidays, free land, fork out EV incentives so we can just hike the prices and gobble them up too - or we'll build the factory elsewhere.

[I am Groot]

1 hour ago, herbie said:

 And at this point in time nuclear is more expensive and takes longer to implement.

More expensive than what? And the longer timeline is mostly a product of bureaucracy and process, not building.

1 hour ago, herbie said:

But to compare the cost of Quebec's Hydro Project or BC's SiteC? WTF do you think nukes cost?

I think both projects are a product of the incompetence Canada has come to accept in all its major projects. Nothing finishes on time. Nothing comes anywhere near budget. Why? Because of bad planning? Because of corruption? Because of massive bureaucracy and red tape? All three? We need to do something about that.

1 hour ago, herbie said:

How many small reactors would you need to compare to the output of either project?

We do not have an endless supply of water to dam up for electricity. We need nukes. We should have been starting to build them years ago. Even if they were regular nukes and not the smaller ones. But we have shitty government that prefers not to think about anything beyond the next election.

1 hour ago, herbie said:

We'd be even stupider not to build them as 90% of the cars we build in Canada are exported and EVs are the growth market.

For now, perhaps. But if someone doesn't quickly solve the issue with the scarcity of rare earths the growth is going to come to an abrupt halt. There is also reluctance to drive them here, esp in less urban areas. What happens during a multi day power outage?

 

 

[I am Groot]

20 hours ago, CdnFox said:

We can still use solar and wind to help offset the costs of other power and to reduce our need for other power - but we're not getting away solar only any time soon.  Especailly in the north.

And if we did the environmentalists would probably say we're soaking up too much of the sun's energy and it's contributing to global cooling or some damn thing.... 

Some damn thing.

 

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

Some damn thing.

 

Ya know - you make up the stupidest thing the left could say and they're ahead of you  

[Army Guy]

1 hour ago, herbie said:

We'd be even stupider not to build them as 90% of the cars we build in Canada are exported and EVs are the growth market. If you think about the total number of EV cars built today and of charging them all in Canada today, or the number of EVs there might be used tomorrow and the infrastructure today, you could justify your claim.
You can't if you take the number of EV cars in use here today and the infrastructure today, nor can you predict tomorrow's sales and tomorrow's power.

You want to talk about waste, then point the finger where it belongs at the makers. Blackmailing everyone. Give us subsidies, weaken your labour laws, hand out grants, give us tax holidays, free land, fork out EV incentives so we can just hike the prices and gobble them up too - or we'll build the factory elsewhere.

Perhaps i am not explaining myself well enough, the is a huge deficit on our electrical grid, not only national in distribution, and transmission, but also within our communities, where grids are not large enough for you to charge your new shinny EV over night but rather needs 3 full days to charge becasue the grid is not up to that standard to allow for high speed charging...And with the liberal timelines 2035 is around the corner and we still have not put out a plan to tackle infra structure and increase power demands...

Quote

 

The report, released Wednesday by the Canadian Climate Institute, says significant changes are required to every aspect of the provincial and territorial power generation and distribution systems to meet the future demand. Otherwise, there could be consequences ranging from not meeting our climate goals to brownouts.

"There could be challenges for reliability," said Caroline Lee, one of the report's authors and a senior researcher at the institute, which researches climate policy. "That means outages and certain technical issues in our grids." 

 

Quote

 

"If we see more people … using electric vehicles, if we see more people switching toward electric heat pumps — and yet the systems are not well equipped to be able to manage that increased demand, as well as the timing of that demand — then there could be some real issues," Lee said.

Some early adopters know some of these problems firsthand. Kim Nelson, a film professor in Windsor, Ont., and her family can't upgrade to a faster charger for their Chevy Bolt because their street wouldn't be able to accommodate the extra load if their and other households also upgraded. 

 

Canada's electricity grid will need substantial changes to help achieve net zero: report | CBC News

[I am Groot]

Another voice heard from.

According to the federal government’s own data, Canada’s emissions in 2019 were 724 million tonnes — 1.5% of global emissions, down from 1.8% in 2005 — while global emissions during the same period increased 23.6%, from 38,669 million tonnes to 48,117 million tonnes.

The highest-emitting country in 2019, according to the same data, was China with 12,705 million tonnes, or 26.4% of global emissions, up 74.8% from 2005.

As Kenneth Green noted in a recent Fraser Institute report, which estimated the federal emissions cap will cost the Canadian economy more than $44 billion in 2030, even if Canada eliminated all emissions expected from the oil and gas sector in 2030, “the reduction would equal four-tenths of 1% of global emissions.”

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-were-paying-money-for-nothing-to-fight-climate-change

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, I am Groot said:

Another voice heard from.

According to the federal government’s own data, Canada’s emissions in 2019 were 724 million tonnes — 1.5% of global emissions, down from 1.8% in 2005 — while global emissions during the same period increased 23.6%, from 38,669 million tonnes to 48,117 million tonnes.

The highest-emitting country in 2019, according to the same data, was China with 12,705 million tonnes, or 26.4% of global emissions, up 74.8% from 2005.

As Kenneth Green noted in a recent Fraser Institute report, which estimated the federal emissions cap will cost the Canadian economy more than $44 billion in 2030, even if Canada eliminated all emissions expected from the oil and gas sector in 2030, “the reduction would equal four-tenths of 1% of global emissions.”

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-were-paying-money-for-nothing-to-fight-climate-change

It's the modern day equivalent of mass religious fervor.

[SpankyMcFarland]

On 6/4/2023 at 5:26 PM, I am Groot said:

This is the silly equity argument we see whenever the facts are pointed out. It makes absolutely no sense except as an aspect of progressive social justice beliefs (which themselves are mostly nonsensical). Yes, we did a lot of polluting when the alternative to burning wood or coal or oil was death by freezing. But that's not the only alternative now.

So why do countries like China and India get a by on building coal plants?

I believe people and countries should be responsible for their actions. That’s not a new idea. 

[SpankyMcFarland]

It is strange but not surprising that this forum still seems to lack a thread on the current wildfire crisis engulfing Canada. Why talk about the smoke choking our lungs when we can denounce woke social progressives etc. etc.? 

[I am Groot]

12 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

It is strange but not surprising that this forum still seems to lack a thread on the current wildfire crisis engulfing Canada. Why talk about the smoke choking our lungs when we can denounce woke social progressives etc. etc.? 

What do you want to talk about the forest fires for? We all know stuff is burning. I don't think there's going to be a raging argument about that. I myself think there ought to be a central pool of equipment like water bombers, perhaps even standing by ready to be flown by trained military pilots in an emergency situation like we have now. 

If you want to climb up on a pedestal and start screaming that this is because of climate change feel free. It doesn't really make any difference to anything if it is or isn't. The facts remain the same. China is adding the CO2 equivalent of five new oil sands projects every year. India isn't far behind. Remember that goober who said something like if the oil sands keep expanding it's 'game over for the planet"? Yet the oil sands are irrelevant compared to the vast new amounts of CO2 coming online from the ever-growing horde of coal power plants in the developing world.

Which means we're we should forget about trying to destroy our economy by making power more and more expensive and instead use our wealth to put dikes and irrigation systems and better forest management systems in place.

But I know that's not something you want to hear.

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, I am Groot said:

Which means we're we should forget about trying to destroy our economy by making power more and more expensive and instead use our wealth to put dikes and irrigation systems and better forest management systems in place.

But I know that's not something you want to hear.

How do we compel that investment? What's to prevent us from allowing the  wealth you're talking about from just going into the pockets of the oil companies instead?

A mitigation tax? How many billions or trillions will be required?

[I am Groot]

37 minutes ago, eyeball said:

How do we compel that investment?

Not hard when you use tax writeoffs and infrastructure funding.

37 minutes ago, eyeball said:

What's to prevent us from allowing the  wealth you're talking about from just going into the pockets of the oil companies instead?

Proper taxation policy.

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

3 hours ago, I am Groot said:

If you want to climb up on a pedestal and start screaming that this is because of climate change feel free. It doesn't really make any difference to anything if it is or isn't. The facts remain the same. China is adding the CO2 equivalent of five new oil sands projects every year. India isn't far behind. Remember that goober who said something like if the oil sands keep expanding it's 'game over for the planet"? Yet the oil sands are irrelevant compared to the vast new amounts of CO2 coming online from the ever-growing horde of coal power plants in the developing world.

The reality of anthropogenic climate change was blindingly obvious to any reasonable person twenty years ago but the fossil fuel industry and many useful, well, information-poor allies around them have used one tactic after another to avoid serious attempts to admit the cause of the problem and do something about it. For the moment, the catastrophic conditions we are facing have been largely caused by us in the West, and not yet by China. To those in Western and northern Canada facing this horrific new man-made age of fire, all I can say is good luck. 
 

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by SpankyMcFarland

[I am Groot]

41 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

The reality of anthropogenic climate change was blindingly obvious to any reasonable person twenty years ago but the fossil fuel industry and many useful, well, information-poor allies around them have used one tactic after another to avoid serious attempts to admit the cause of the problem and do something about it.

Maybe in this country But in Western Europe they've been pouring hundreds of billions into lowering Co2 emissions, to the point they got caught flat-footed when the Russians cut off their natural gas. Mind you, the stupidity of closing down nuclear power plants in Germany and Japan has a part fo play there, too. The Japanese have finally realized that's a dumb idea and are retreating but the Germans seem determined to screw up their economy as much as possible.

But blaming the West, as you guys tend to do, again ignores the real issue. While the West HAS largely taken cilmate change seriously and has been doing its best to wean itself off fossil fuels the developing world has ignored the problem and is continuing to build hundreds of coal power plants.  And guys like you are like "That's okay. You're good. You keep doing that. I'll keep blaming whitey!"

41 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

For the moment, the catastrophic conditions we are facing have been largely caused by us in the West,

What catastrophic conditions? Forest fires have been on a downward slope in Canada for twenty five years now. This is an anomaly. 

https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ha/nfdb

 

[blackbird]

Just wondered how much CO2 all these hundreds of forest fires across Canada are emitting into the atmosphere.  The forest fires probably emit more CO2 than humans emit in ten years with fossil fuels.  But the climate change alarmists and fanatics and Trudeau will never admit that.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Just wondered how much CO2 all these hundreds of forest fires across Canada are emitting into the atmosphere.  The forest fires probably emit more CO2 than humans emit in ten years with fossil fuels.  But the climate change alarmists and fanatics and Trudeau will never admit that.

Don't say I never do anything for you...

With a total estimated carbon footprint of 270 million tonnes, wildfire emissions were the single biggest source of greenhouse gases in 2021, equivalent to what would be emitted by 60 million cars over the course of a year.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/emissions-from-wildfires-hit-record-high-in-2021-as-climate-change-drives-fire-threat-1.6405035

[blackbird]

5 hours ago, bcsapper said:

Don't say I never do anything for you...

With a total estimated carbon footprint of 270 million tonnes, wildfire emissions were the single biggest source of greenhouse gases in 2021, equivalent to what would be emitted by 60 million cars over the course of a year.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/emissions-from-wildfires-hit-record-high-in-2021-as-climate-change-drives-fire-threat-1.6405035

Good work!!!   I was purely speculating but looks like I hit the nail on the head.  Too bad Trudeau, minister Guilbeault and the rest of the war-on-climate-change clowns will never recognize it and admit they are wasting their time and our money. 

 If that was it for 2021 imagine how much worse it will be for 2023 as the fires are much worse.