Very cool, if true

yeah, I don't know what to think about Nuclear power any more. Hopefully Germany will now invest a ridiculous amount of money in renewables.

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andrewducker

Renewables can't handle base load, last I checked - they aren't reliable enough without massive amounts of storage.

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I'm sort of staggered by the German decision. Either they're going to now massively increase their greehouse gasses output, or the country will be faced by rolling brownouts in a few years time.

I assume they have some sort of cheap natural gas deal with Russia they are going to increase.

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nojay.livejournal.com

Natural gas is fossil carbon too (CH4), it just doesn't produce as much CO2 per watt as the massive reserves of brown coal (lignite) Germany has within its own borders.

There's about 6GW of new coal-burning plant coming on stream in Germany this year but some of that is replacing really filthy old East-German coal plant that should have been condemned a decade ago but they needed the generating capacity especially after the ban on new nukes was imposed.

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I read something recently about how there are next-gen coal fired stations being developed that will have carbon-capture facilities built-into them. But I'm not entirely convinced by how green this was, and if it was just the coal industry putting some shine on their business.

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nojay.livejournal.com

There's a project being planned to experimentally sequestrate carbon dioxide in old played-out North Sea gas fields. CO2 produced at power stations wil lbe compressed, liquified and pumped across the country and out into the North Sea and then deep underground where it will hopefully stay, otherwise the North Sea is going to resemble New Coke.

You might want to think about the energy budget for this -- I'd rather not. This pig ain't gonna purty up no matter how much lipstick is expended in the effort.

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That sounds like a world of things that could go wrong. And yes, the expense. There would surely be cheaper ways of disposing of CO2.

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welll put funding into that then, I don't bloody know.

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strawberryfrog.livejournal.com

They already did invest a lot in renewables. There's lots of solar power installed in Germany, and not because it's sunny. It "costs 1 billion euros per month to subsidize".

Edited Date: 2011-07-03 12:44 pm (UTC)

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I think what's important to remember here is that, speaking as an Ecologist working in the renewables sector, we're completely fucked.

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I'm starting to take the view: "We've already lost, whatever's going to happen is going to happen and not in our lifetime; the world will survive just fine without us and has suffered bigger changes than this, so we might as well stop worrying about it and get on with burning out."

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"whatever's going to happen is going to happen and not in our lifetime" -It is most definitely going to get awful within the next 40 years (I assume you think you are going to live another 40 years)

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You reckon? Awful enough that we can't just shore-up the damage and pretend it's not happening? I mean, the really horrific stuff like hugely changing sea levels and so on is a bit further ahead than that, is it not?

(Anyway, the first step of the collapse will be lawless anarchy which I will either die in or lead, so...)

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yes. WE'RE ALL DOOMED.

(The oceans are going to die in the next few decades (i.e. be empty of life) and the insects are crashing, which has serious consequences for the planet-wide ecosystem. dooooom.)

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Again, not that I disagree, but is that really going to be something we can't ignore for a bit? I realise that there's a horrible knock-on effect that we will feel, but is it actually going to be anything we can't artificially shore-up by burning more quickly through our fuel reserves? I figured we'd just burn through more and more resources more and more quickly in a bid to make our own generation more comfortable while the next can go to hell (after all, that's what our parents did with the economy, why shouldn't we do it with the rest of the planet?).

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you can't really burn a load of oil and magically bring back all the fish

DOOM

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I did read something interesting about the areas off the scottish coast where they banned all fishing because the stocks were so low, and they were surprised to find how quickly the fish stocks replenished... Perhaps if largescale areas were declared off limits for fishing boats. (And rigourously policed.) Then the oceans could bounce back?

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yes - spot on. Also benefits areas outside the no-take zones as the marine life over-spills, so fisherman benefit too. It;s not going to be policed, though, but an interesting side effect of off-shore wind development is that you physically can't fish there; we're essentially creating huge no-take zones that don't need policing

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..but remember that wind farms "look ugly" and "aren't profitable" so most won't get built

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Not In My Back Yard syndrome could help out the off-shore farm projects though?

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you'd think

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Ah, fascinating, so as an unexpected benefit of the offshore wind farms, it will create these zones. Cool, at least then the damned windmills will be contributing something useful for how much they cost. :)

(I'm yet to be convinced that windfarms are ever going to be really worth their while. But I'm open to being convinced otherwise.)

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I don't eat fish. I was more thinking that they'll just use more fuel for measures to artificially keep other food sources going - man-powered pollination and so on.

Like I said, temporary measures that make things liveable for us now while fucking them up more interminably than ever.

I'm not saying I'm in favour of this option. Only that we sure as hell don't seem to be doing anything about another option and this one will shuffle people off the earth more quickly, which will be best for everyone, really.

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Assuming it is as bad as that (and I agree it could very well be as bad as that) the death of the oceans... at what point do our political leaders wake up and realise something has to be done?

Or have they just come to the conclusion that the world is doomed whatever we do, so there is no point in panicking people unduly?

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the oceans - comparable to the tragedy of the commons; no-one owns it, so no-one is willing to fork out and protect it in the long run when they can strip-mine it now and make an immediate profit. Europe tried to protect the tuna not too long ago, but North Africa then thought "great! Europe aren't going to fish there, so we will and get all the money"

Even within territorial waters, the small no-take zones around the UK have been hugely beneficial for local wildlife, but then a cunning fisherman will just come along and strip the whole lot, then bugger off. And the coastguard can't afford to do anything about it.

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I do remember they had no end of trouble trying to set up a few no-fishing sectors, and the spanish fishermen just snuck in and pinched everything. So yeah, until or unless the navy get political will to start sinking a few ships, very difficult to enforce.

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you have no idea how infuriating it is to be sitting on an island watching trawlers strip-mine a hugely succesful no-take zone, and being completely fucking unable to do anything because the Devon coastguard boat is on the wrong side of the country.

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I've followed the fishing industry for a while now, and yes, it seems so hair-pullingly frustrating to try and get through to fishers that yes, they really do have to obey the quotas, or in 10 years time they will all be out of business anyway.

If anything demonstrates the short-sighted profit-driven nature of humanity, it is the fishing industry.

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khbrown.livejournal.com

Classic Tragedy of the Commons?

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