Maybe we are not doomed after all

seanoconn

Sorry

rick_chasey

Speaking of individuals people making a difference, ostensibly or otherwise, I do think some vision of what the future will actually look like that isn't some sh!t version of our current world is quite key to getting everyone's head around the idea that this is something we all ought to do.

shirley_basso

rick_chasey said:

Speaking of individuals people making a difference, ostensibly or otherwise, I do think some vision of what the future will actually look like that isn't some sh!t version of our current world is quite key to getting everyone's head around the idea that this is something we all ought to do.

Cue the Labour Party......

rick_chasey

Right. I mean, I dunno about you but when I think of the future and sustainability, I just see a more meagre restricted iteration of life now.

Less this, less that etc etc.

focuszing723

I'm not playing anymore, Rick was nasty about Elon Musk and he's going to make humanity multiplanetary and everything. He also make electric cars, solar panels and mind tap devices. :-p

shirley_basso

rick_chasey said:

Right. I mean, I dunno about you but when I think of the future and sustainability, I just see a more meagre restricted iteration of life now.

Less this, less that etc etc.

It was a joke about what you keep banging on about what Labour should be doing - presenting a vision for the future.

TheBigBean

Australia has quite a lot of solar power installed, but could do with more. It's quite political though.

bobbygloss

But if that map is accurate, they really don't seem to have that much. The UK has 13.4GW of installed capacity, but for the regions with data Australia has 6.5GW.

TheBigBean

bobbygloss said:

But if that map is accurate, they really don't seem to have that much. The UK has 13.4GW of installed capacity, but for the regions with data Australia has 6.5GW.

Australia has 23.5GW. Note a GW generates more in Aus than the UK.

https://pv-map.apvi.org.au/analyses

rjsterry

shirley_basso said:

rick_chasey said:

Speaking of individuals people making a difference, ostensibly or otherwise, I do think some vision of what the future will actually look like that isn't some sh!t version of our current world is quite key to getting everyone's head around the idea that this is something we all ought to do.

Cue the Labour Party......

🤣

mully79

Little bit on refrigerant gas for fun/perspective.

R22 which was banned in new equipment in UK in 2004 and has been illegal to use since 2015 had a global sales value of $309.2 Billion in 2019.

Even at a made up crazy price of a $1000 per kg (its advertised at $20 per kg in China) that would be 30900 tons which is the equivalent of 55.9 million tons of CO2. (Gwp of 1810)

If a jumbo jet uses 92kg CO2 per hour then the worlds yearly consumption of a UK banned refrigerent is the CO2 equivalent of flying a 1000 Jumbo jets constantly for 69 years !!

Please note : Stella isn't helping my maths and the numbers are so big my calculator struggles.

PS. Of course a system would have to leak the gas out to contribute to global warming but any percentage of those numbers is staggering.

Wheelspinner

pinno said:

I don't think anyone expressed 'outrage' spinner.


Back to Queensland:
You say '1/3rd of the population' so per capita that's huge Carbon output.

Exhibit A: Mully79 ended his post with “FFS”. I take that as outrage.

Exhibit B: as per bold bit above, no I didn’t. I’ll type it out because your ability with reading seems poor today. Queensland has ONE THIRTEENTH the population of the UK, not ONE THIRD.

Should have gone to Specsavers, eh?

Wheelspinner

pblakeney said:

I think the point is that the time and money could be better spent fixing this planet instead of planning to ruin another one.

Thank you. At least somebody gets it!

pinno

Wheelspinner said:

Exhibit B: as per bold bit above, no I didn’t. I’ll type it out because your ability with reading seems poor today. Queensland has ONE THIRTEENTH the population of the UK, not ONE THIRD.

Should have gone to Specsavers, eh?

I should have.
However, you have just underlined an even bigger carbon output per capita.
I looked it up:

Australia: 14th in the global table @ 17.10 tons of carbon per capita.
UK 17th: 5.55 tcpc

I did say that I wondered what that actual figure is given the UK's 'production by proxy' but that would also count for Australia too.

pinno

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/

pinno

mully79 said:

Little bit on refrigerant gas for fun/perspective.

R22 which was banned in new equipment in UK in 2004 and has been illegal to use since 2015 had a global sales value of $309.2 Billion in 2019.

Even at a made up crazy price of a $1000 per kg (its advertised at $20 per kg in China) that would be 30900 tons which is the equivalent of 55.9 million tons of CO2. (Gwp of 1810)

If a jumbo jet uses 92kg CO2 per hour then the worlds yearly consumption of a UK banned refrigerent is the CO2 equivalent of flying a 1000 Jumbo jets constantly for 69 years !!

Please note : Stella isn't helping my maths and the numbers are so big my calculator struggles.

PS. Of course a system would have to leak the gas out to contribute to global warming but any percentage of those numbers is staggering.

You shouldn't drink Stella; they have to import it from the continent.

#gogreendrinkmead

Wheelspinner

pinno said:

Wheelspinner said:

Exhibit B: as per bold bit above, no I didn’t. I’ll type it out because your ability with reading seems poor today. Queensland has ONE THIRTEENTH the population of the UK, not ONE THIRD.

Should have gone to Specsavers, eh?

I should have.
However, you have just underlined an even bigger carbon output per capita.
I looked it up:

Australia: 14th in the global table @ 17.10 tons of carbon per capita.
UK 17th: 5.55 tcpc

I did say that I wondered what that actual figure is given the UK's 'production by proxy' but that would also count for Australia too.

Point being that the per capita figure (while bad, not arguing that) is a bit irrelevant if there aren’t that many “capita” to begin with.

This is the population density map of QLD:



Note that the great majority has a density of “0-3 persons/sq km”.

I visited a family in outback Qld once whose property was roughly 10,000 square miles. Yes, 100 * 100 miles. Population was Mum, Dad, two kids and a couple of farm hands. There really isn’t much out there in parts…

Would you have been quite so shocked about a few little brown specks on the coastline from that map of carbon output instead of a vast area that is 7 times bigger than the UK?

In fact, I would be surprised if that map was even remotely correct. I’d be pretty confident in saying that a sizeable chunk of that outback Queensland has properties that these days are entirely dependent on having their own solar power, and are not even connected to the coal generation grid. The distribution costs for the power network far outweigh the return of three customers paying a quarterly power bill of a couple of hundred bucks.

Wheelspinner

TheBigBean said:

Australia has quite a lot of solar power installed, but could do with more. It's quite political though.

Very correct, it’s extremely political. This country has achieved wealth out of all proportion to our relative effort or ingenuity by simply digging up the place and flogging it off. Mining of all sorts has been incredibly lucrative to the country as a whole, not just from coal, and not just for a few individuals.

mully79

2040 was the FFS. The timescales are frustrating.
Greta will be 37 and new petrol and diesel cars will have been banned from UK roads 10 years earlier yet many countries will still be burning coal for electricity.

pinno

Wheelspinner said:

pinno said:

Wheelspinner said:

...

I should have.
However, you have just underlined an even bigger carbon output per capita.
I looked it up:

Australia: 14th in the global table @ 17.10 tons of carbon per capita.
UK 17th: 5.55 tcpc

I did say that I wondered what that actual figure is given the UK's 'production by proxy' but that would also count for Australia too.

Point being that the per capita figure (while bad, not arguing that) is a bit irrelevant if there aren’t that many “capita” to begin with.

Ah I see what you are saying. I had assumed they made the calculation differently.
It throws the whole map into question.

rick_chasey

mully79 said:

2040 was the FFS. The timescales are frustrating.
Greta will be 37 and new petrol and diesel cars will have been banned from UK roads 10 years earlier yet many countries will still be burning coal for electricity.

The world can change a lot in 20 years.

Better to get the ball rolling on something, than a "do it all or nothing" approach.

bobbygloss

Yes, maybe the map is rubbish, sorry. TBB's link above also indicates at least some things are wrong.
It was posted on our intranet in a theme about clean energy, discussing how Norway is exporting clean green electricity to the UK and Netherlands, but importing almost the same amount of "dirty" electricity from Germany and Denmark.

Wheelspinner

bobbygloss said:

Yes, maybe the map is rubbish, sorry. TBB's link above also indicates at least some things are wrong.
It was posted on our intranet in a theme about clean energy, discussing how Norway is exporting clean green electricity to the UK and Netherlands, but importing almost the same amount of "dirty" electricity from Germany and Denmark.

Also interesting is that Norway has an extremely high per capita consumption of power, at almost 2.5 times the Australian average, and about 4 times the UK average, but nobody seems to mind? Any reason I wonder? Iceland is twice as bad as Norway.

They may *produce* power quite "cleanly" but the consumption end is no different from anywhere else I'd wager, meaning waste heat and emissions from all those activities. Of course, a lot of the domestic consumption will be specifically to generate heat so they can stay cosy and have saunas I suppose.

Wheelspinner

And just to show that those pesky Frenchies are fully committed to the fight against climate change... here's a link to their latest successful venture.

https://au.ponant.com/le-commandant-charcot

You and a couple of hundred of your super-rich chummy chum chums get to smash your way through pristine Arctic environments while floating in an outdoor spa. Watch the look on the faces of the endangered Polar Bears as you leave a trail of destruction in the last of their native environment! Then enjoy a dip in a specially smashed out section of the ice to give you the ultimate Instagram selfie moment.

All so you can say you reached the geographic North Pole in uber-luxury without spooling your Christian Louboutin heels, and ticked that off your Hermes-embossed bucket list diary.

But really it's fine because it's all powered by gas and electric. So environmentally chi-chi friendly! They'll burn some of that gas to keep the cocktail bar area warm enough so you can show off the suntan acquired at St Tropez the week before the cruise daaaah-ling. And you can rest assured they paid some servants somewhere to plant a tree in a desert. Or something. Just to prove they're carbon neutral.

Pross

Wheelspinner said:

bobbygloss said:

Yes, maybe the map is rubbish, sorry. TBB's link above also indicates at least some things are wrong.
It was posted on our intranet in a theme about clean energy, discussing how Norway is exporting clean green electricity to the UK and Netherlands, but importing almost the same amount of "dirty" electricity from Germany and Denmark.

Also interesting is that Norway has an extremely high per capita consumption of power, at almost 2.5 times the Australian average, and about 4 times the UK average, but nobody seems to mind? Any reason I wonder? Iceland is twice as bad as Norway.

They may *produce* power quite "cleanly" but the consumption end is no different from anywhere else I'd wager, meaning waste heat and emissions from all those activities. Of course, a lot of the domestic consumption will be specifically to generate heat so they can stay cosy and have saunas I suppose.

Consumption is irrelevant to climate change though, it's the CO2 from generation that is contributing to the greenhouse effect and global warming. Any heat produced just follows the laws of thermodynamics and moves around, it isn't 'new' heat.

Jezyboy

I think the more relevant critique of Norway is they got mega rich off oil and gas they exported and have used that to build up preachy green energy system.

Still probably better than getting mega rich off exporting coal and not doing anything about your own energy system.

rjsterry

Wheelspinner said:

bobbygloss said:

Yes, maybe the map is rubbish, sorry. TBB's link above also indicates at least some things are wrong.
It was posted on our intranet in a theme about clean energy, discussing how Norway is exporting clean green electricity to the UK and Netherlands, but importing almost the same amount of "dirty" electricity from Germany and Denmark.

Also interesting is that Norway has an extremely high per capita consumption of power, at almost 2.5 times the Australian average, and about 4 times the UK average, but nobody seems to mind? Any reason I wonder? Iceland is twice as bad as Norway.

They may *produce* power quite "cleanly" but the consumption end is no different from anywhere else I'd wager, meaning waste heat and emissions from all those activities. Of course, a lot of the domestic consumption will be specifically to generate heat so they can stay cosy and have saunas I suppose.

It's quite cold and dark in Norway for quite a lot of the year.

rick_chasey

Jezyboy said:

I think the more relevant critique of Norway is they got mega rich off oil and gas they exported and have used that to build up preachy green energy system.

Still probably better than getting mega rich off exporting coal and not doing anything about your own energy system.

It’s probably less helpful moralising about past behaviour and better to focus on good behaviour now.

Ultimately every nation has its own internal resistance it needs to overcome, and it will be stronger in some countries than in others.

Helping nations who are struggling and showing those who resist how it can work well is the only thing you can really do.

Britain has its fair share of climate change sceptics and is certainly not immune to sceptics lobbying with lots of money so there is plenty to deal with at home before you can throw stones.

Wheelspinner

Pross said:

Wheelspinner said:

bobbygloss said:

Yes, maybe the map is rubbish, sorry. TBB's link above also indicates at least some things are wrong.
It was posted on our intranet in a theme about clean energy, discussing how Norway is exporting clean green electricity to the UK and Netherlands, but importing almost the same amount of "dirty" electricity from Germany and Denmark.

Also interesting is that Norway has an extremely high per capita consumption of power, at almost 2.5 times the Australian average, and about 4 times the UK average, but nobody seems to mind? Any reason I wonder? Iceland is twice as bad as Norway.

They may *produce* power quite "cleanly" but the consumption end is no different from anywhere else I'd wager, meaning waste heat and emissions from all those activities. Of course, a lot of the domestic consumption will be specifically to generate heat so they can stay cosy and have saunas I suppose.

Consumption is irrelevant to climate change though, it's the CO2 from generation that is contributing to the greenhouse effect and global warming. Any heat produced just follows the laws of thermodynamics and moves around, it isn't 'new' heat.

Hmm. It’s 40 years since I sat in a thermodynamics class at uni, but yes I dimly recall that concept. However, the consumption processes will have radically different efficiencies, and the difference is pretty much all going to be (waste) or intentional heat.

If I take 5 kw input to a room, use it solely to run a bunch of things that are (say) 95% efficient and which only “waste” 5% as heat, the effect on the room temp will be minimal. If I have a second room and take all 5 kw to just run a bar element heater and nothing else, the room will be a sauna in no time. And if I open the doors of both rooms that heat will go out and (slightly) warm up the outside environment nearby. It has to end up somewhere, according to those thermodynamic rules, yes? It will be significantly more local environmental impact outside the sauna room?

So, the point I was hoping to make is that it will take roughly the same energy consumption for you in UK, me in Oz and Sven in Norway to (store and) cook food, and do basic stuff like watch TV and turn a light on, a bit longer for Sven perhaps. We all use pretty much the same appliances to do that stuff, ovens, fridges, tv’s etc. The efficiency is constant.

So why do they consume on average 5 times the energy you do, @Pross ? What is it being produced for, if not just extra heating (on a simplistic level)? Remember that number is their *consumption* per capita, not production. And if it is “extra” heating will it not end up

I can guess that the Australia number is higher than UK, because we have disproportionately big houses, mostly poorly insulated for heat or cold and run lots of air con in summer.

The fact that the Norway production is “better” per unit than you and me is clearly offset to some degree that they consume vastly more units just to do the same things you and I do.

I’m curious more than anything. Doesn’t that matter at all?

seanoconn

rjsterry said:

Wheelspinner said:

bobbygloss said:

Yes, maybe the map is rubbish, sorry. TBB's link above also indicates at least some things are wrong.
It was posted on our intranet in a theme about clean energy, discussing how Norway is exporting clean green electricity to the UK and Netherlands, but importing almost the same amount of "dirty" electricity from Germany and Denmark.

Also interesting is that Norway has an extremely high per capita consumption of power, at almost 2.5 times the Australian average, and about 4 times the UK average, but nobody seems to mind? Any reason I wonder? Iceland is twice as bad as Norway.

They may *produce* power quite "cleanly" but the consumption end is no different from anywhere else I'd wager, meaning waste heat and emissions from all those activities. Of course, a lot of the domestic consumption will be specifically to generate heat so they can stay cosy and have saunas I suppose.

It's quite cold and dark in Norway for quite a lot of the year.

This seemed the obvious explanation. Iceland colder and darker still.