But... but... coal jobs! And Big Oil! Whatever will we do without our Fossil Fuel Overlords?!
In all seriousness, I do agree with you. One reason China is pushing new regulation is because they realized how much of an impact all that concentrated emission was having at their cities. They still have smog days so bad they tell people to stay indoors in some places.
How? Slap a solar panel on it and leave it in the desert:O In theory it can keep going forever.. so after paying the initial cost to make such a factory, it would basically run for free. Well sans maintenance here and there. So again like trees, but solely focused on producing material, and stripped from all other "useless" functions such as competing with other trees, fighting illnesses, reproduction etc etc.
Actually both the co2a to plastic and co2a to fuel processes are a big waste of time and energy. If anything you should try to slap on any kind of conversion process directly to processes, which have large amounts of emissions. Except, in case of co2 to fuel it will not reduce co2 emissions (in a significant way) as fuel will again turn into co2 (and other gases/ash) after is is burned. The environmental friendly version of co2 conversion is used in combination with renewable sources and has the goal of using excess energy (midday from solar panels, etc.).
Actually both the co2a to plastic and co2a to fuel processes are a big waste of time and energy. If anything you should try to slap on any kind of conversion process directly to processes, which have large amounts of emissions. Except, in case of co2 to fuel it will not reduce co2 emissions (in a significant way) as fuel will again turn into co2 (and other gases/ash) after is is burned. The environmental friendly version of co2 conversion is used in combination with renewable sources and has the goal of using excess energy (midday from solar panels, etc.).
These estimations are for solar power, which is not reliant on CO2 being in the atmosphere. You seem to be mixing up real energy production from solar cells with your fantasy vision.
In fact, if you know how solar cells work, you'd also know that increasing CO2 and increasing temperature means more water vapor, which blocks out the particles that power our photo cells and keep in even more warming rays that don't do jack for power production.
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"We have to spend billions of dollars researching this new technology, then once we have this new technology, we can spend billions to make new plants that can actually use this new technology. Then we can pay upkeep costs, labor costs, and all other costs associated with running this plant, and have free plastics and free energy!"
Free means without cost.
If you continue to insist that it will be free, then the only thing I can say is your understanding of that word is beyond help.
Also, if this technology ever did get to the point where it was without cost, your original point was that we may as well keep dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, because then we can just take it back out with this new tech... when in fact, we don't even need to keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere to get it back in the form of a usable solid. If we stopped producing CO2 as a whole right now, we'd have enough CO2 in the atmosphere to power this technology indefinitely ALREADY.
2014 Gamergate: "If you want games without hyper sexualized female characters and representation, then learn to code!"
2023: "What's with all these massively successful games with ugly (realistic) women? How could this have happened?!"
Sequestration is part of the solution there is no doubt about it, and sequestration will have a variety of forms. Something like the tech from your orginal article will probably be one of those forms. That being said, I don't know if you looked into the nuts and bolts of the particular technology that came from the article you posted, but there is much more to it than just slapping a solar panel on it.
You can read about it on their website. Or if you want more info read the patents that explain the technology.
“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass." - President Donald Trump
So what is the end play here? What laws do you foresee being enacted, and what effect on the general population will these laws have. How much of the little freedom we have left will have to be given up? I'm not trying to argue for non-action, i'm sincerely wondering what the contingency plans are.
This is the biggest thing some people don't seem to understand. The cost of dealing with this now is far lower than it will be if we wait. We can spend billions now or trillions later it's up to us. The countries who prepare now will inevitably have an economic advantage down the line, and those who don't or can't, will be paying big bucks to catch up. A stitch in time saves nine.
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IMO a national revenue neutral carbon tax is a good place to start. I think there is a large economic force moving towards renewable energy already. It only needs a small boost to push it over. It's not hard to compete with mining and drilling if your energy input is basically free. It's just an infrastructure problem. Of course it needs to be addressed differently in each country. But I think agreements like the Paris climate agreement are of vital importance as well.
Last edited by Zmaniac17; 2017-03-22 at 02:40 AM.
So a magic factory that costs nothing to build and doesn't take up any space anywhere, and has no maintenance costs including staff requirements.
This is why we can't take you seriously.
The "end play" is ensuring that we plan ahead for the conditions we're likely to face, because it's cheaper in the long run to be proactive about these things than reactive after conditions have already impacted things negatively.
That's literally it. Not sure why you're ranting about "giving up freedoms"; you're losing the "freedom" to do stupid shit like "build a house in a place that will be regularly flooded by storm surges in 20 years", which cities shouldn't be letting anyone do in the first place; they have an ethical obligation to their citizens to ensure that if they approve construction, it isn't in a location that's ill-suited and going to cause the owner constant headaches. Standard development practice for literally decades.
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Just as a for-instance, New York City was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Sandy, which brought record-high sea levels with the combination of high tide, the increased sea levels we're seeing, and the massive storm surge on top of all that. It did about $19 billion in damage to the city. They're currently starting a major project (called the "Big U") to try and prevent future such impacts, at a cost of just over $500 million. While that $500m seems like a LOT of money, if it prevents the damage of even one Sandy-type storm in, say, the next 50-80 years, it will have paid for itself many times over. That's the advantage of being proactive rather than reactive.
Someone explain this to me. People are the left side of the spectrum want to save the environment. Which is a noble cause. So they buy Prius's and campaign against any pollution in America. These people also want Globalism and want to give out all the manufacturing jobs to other countries so those people have jobs and we get cheaper products. By doing this they are sending factories to China who is the worlds #1 polluter. Wouldn't you want those factories here in America where you can protest their environment impact and overall lower the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Because I don't see them in China protesting, because if they did they'd get locked up in a dungeon somewhere. Someone explain to me what the thinking here is. If I was them I'd be for moving all the factories here to America so we can make sure they are not polluting near as much as they are in China.
Below Chart is China's emissions from 1965 to 2015
Because that's a somewhat misleading way to look at it. A better measure is per-capita emissions; Canada's emissions in bulk are tiny, but our per-capita are relatively high (consequence of big distances between cities and higher power costs for heating/cooling).
Plus, while China's emissions HAVE spiked, they've also admitted that it's an issue and have put forth a pretty significant effort to curb them since about 2012; you can see how their per-capita numbers start to even off at that point. So they've started to plateau at per-capita emissions rates that are still pretty decent, globally speaking. Slightly above the EU, but that's more due to the EU's strong mitigation efforts recently than China's lack thereof.
"Guys, why should we worry about our emissions here when China isn't doing their part to curb their emissions?"
"They are. They started 10 years ago."
Only has to be explained like 5 times every thread.
2014 Gamergate: "If you want games without hyper sexualized female characters and representation, then learn to code!"
2023: "What's with all these massively successful games with ugly (realistic) women? How could this have happened?!"
"My successes are my own, but my failures are due to extremist leftist liberals" - Party of Personal Responsibility
Prediction for the future
We can't keep low skilled manufacturing jobs here in the United States they are being replaced with automation because only robots can compete with sub minimum wage workers in countries like China and India. Closing borders and keeping your manufacturing inside the country only makes your businesses less competitive on the global market.
Globalism is not something that can stopped. For example, to make a smart phone, it takes the entire world to produce the parts and materials. The materials and parts literally come from everywhere. And assembling them is not really where the big money comes from. Wouldn't you rather own Apple over Foxconn? So whether or not people want it is irrelevant. They buy smart phones and other stuff so globalism continues.
There is a lot of out of sight out of mind hypocrisy going on with environmentalism and you're right to point out that China is now the biggest offender with CO2 pollution. However, they are also the single largest investor in renewable energy. This seems backwards to me. The United States, having already completed their transition into an advanced economy, should be the world leader in advanced renewable power.
My main points here are that the future is robotic manufacturing and renewable power. Anyone stuck using people and fossil fuels will suffer for it. I'm not sure if that answered your question or not.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/w...nvestment.html
Last edited by Zmaniac17; 2017-03-22 at 05:01 AM.
I know you're being sarcastic, but, what coal jobs?
I am still waiting for even a Conservative American source to explain how, even with the pollution regulations removed, coal will somehow become competitively economically viable, to my satisfaction. And yes, it'd have to be both Conservative and American because international sources, and center/left American sources, aren't saying this at all.
We're not using coal.
China's not using coal.
India and Russia are upping output, though not as much as they'd like, which won't help prices.
Nuclear energy and hydroelectric remain the best options, and in the meantime, the US under Trump's orders is expanding fracking and oil, driving the costs of both down. The price of oil has dropped since Jan 20th from about $54 to about $48 due to a variety of reasons I'm sure, but none of which magically make coal better.
The only realistic option are massive subsidies, meaning, that American taxpayers will be paying for coal to go to other people. Which means, that there will be people who say that a coal miner shouldn't have to pay for PBS, but PBS will have to pay for a coal miner.
EDIT: Also, what @Zmaniac17 said!
There are now entire roofs that are solar panels, even solar powered shingles, and no, the costs are not that high, considering they eliminate an electric bill.
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You spouting moronic nonsense. Do you even know what the most important and needed component for the manufacturing of plastic on a large scale basis is? Crude Oil.
You will not be magically making it from air.
Last edited by Gorgodeus; 2017-03-22 at 06:55 AM.
Technically speaking, no.
Plastics are at their most basic hydrocarbon polymers which are by definition produced from simpler hydrocarbons - it's entirely possible to produce hydrocarbons using atmospheric carbon sequestration. The issue that it's ridiculously expensive, energy intensive, and nowhere near as efficient as just planting trees and things that sequester carbon by virtue of them just being alive.
If we're talking novel scientific solutions I daresay the likely thing is GM plants that have an upped level of carbon intake - probably hemp, since you can grow the fucking thing in almost any environment.
Originally Posted by Marjane Satrapi