Climate Change
BB - I will also give it one last try to enable you to understand what is the ACTUAL definition of NET ZERO .
Here is the definition from our own Climate Council .
‘Net zero emissions’ refers to achieving an overall balance between greenhouse gas emissions produced and greenhouse gas emissions taken out of the atmosphere. Think of it like a set of scales: producing greenhouse gas emissions tips the scales, and we want to get those scales back into balance, which means no more greenhouse gas can be added to the atmosphere in any given year than is taken out.
Eventually, we will probably need to tip them the other way to repair past harm. Once we stop emitting greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, we still need to deal with all the emissions we’ve already pumped into the atmosphere over the years.
Getting to net zero means we can still produce some emissions, as long as they are offset by processes that reduce greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. For example, these could be things like planting new forests, or drawdown technologies like direct air capture. The more emissions that are produced, the more carbon dioxide we need to remove from the atmosphere (this is called sequestration) to reach net zero. "
Your inability to know the basics on the basics of an issue you preach are unbelievable !
Some unsurprising but revelatory internal communication unearthed from ELF/TotalEnergies.
One from 1985 (others go back to the early 70s) stating that the carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere resulting from the burning of fossil fuels will inevitably lead to a warming of the planet and an acceptance of this as scientific fact.
Then others relating to the company's ensuing strategy:
Highlight the views of dissenting 'scientific' voices, repeat ad nauseam how a change to cleaner energy sources would cost jobs, raise taxes and result in higher prices for the consumer etc.
Like a list of Andrew Bolt talking points, oddly enough.
Here's the article Hutchy is referring to:
https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/what-does-net-zero-emissions...
It's worth reading the whole thing.
Some of the Climate Council's article that Hutchy left out:
"However, to avoid a climate catastrophe, new emissions of greenhouse gas must be as low as possible. In other words, we need to get as close as possible to a real zero and only rely on offsetting when it is absolutely necessary. This means that we need to rapidly phase out fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – and transition to renewable energy."
"At a federal level, Australia lacks credible climate and renewable energy policy to drive us towards that future, and our emission reduction targets are inadequate to meet our Paris climate commitments. What’s more, our exported emissions (in the form of coal and gas) are about 2.5 times higher than our domestic emissions. While these are not counted on Australia’s ledger, it’s still worsening climate change."
Cherry picking?
Here is an article that explains some basics .
Where Stuff Comes From
BY TYLER DURDEN
WEDNESDAY, OCT 20, 2021 - 03:30 PM
Via Doomberg Substack,
“this dovetails in sinister fashion with the basic idea that any sufficiently advanced technology cannot be distinguished from magic. highly evolved capitalism becomes such a technology and the largess and plenty it produces gets mistaken for a property of the universe rather than a made thing, a thing that must be created rather than simply reaped.”
– el gato malo
Modern society is awash in stuff. There’s stuff at the grocery store. At the hardware store. At Amazon and eBay. We eat stuff, wear stuff, buy stuff, and store stuff. Click some buttons, swipe a card, tap a phone – and presto! Stuff appears, like magic.
At least for now.
We are a carbon-based species. Carbon forms the foundation of our bodies and the external world we experience. Almost everything we touch is carbon-based. As I type this, I’m sitting on a couch made predominantly from foamed polyurethane, my feet resting on a carpet made from synthetic nylon. I just sipped water from a bottle made of polyethylene terephthalate, which I then placed on a coffee table made of wood.
Not only is our stuff mostly based on carbon, but the energy required to manipulate materials – to make stuff – comes predominately from carbon-based feedstocks as well. While not all stuff is based itself on carbon – copper wire is made of copper, after all – we can’t make use of it without first extracting energy from carbon fuels. In other words, we can’t mine copper without carbon. Those excavators, dump trucks, and bulldozers aren’t going to run themselves.
Since energy is life, mastering the chemistry of carbon and harnessing the energy of stuff to make other stuff is core to the human endeavor.
Let’s develop a grossly simplified mental model. Picture a four-rung ladder. Because of gravity it takes energy to climb a ladder, but to fall from one is a spontaneous event – let go of your grip and you’ll soon reintroduce yourself to the ground. In a way, interchanging between chemical compounds is analogous to our ladder. Sometimes, going from one chemical compound to another releases energy (like falling down the ladder), whereas going in the opposite direction requires putting energy in (like climbing the ladder). Just replace the word “gravity” with “enthalpy” and you can begin to sound scientific.
At the top rung of our ladder sits methane, more commonly known as natural gas. Among the hydrocarbons, methane has the most embedded energy. Way down below – on the ground – sits carbon dioxide (CO2). When you burn methane fully, you react it with oxygen and produce CO2 and water as products. That reaction gives off an enormous amount of useful energy – the increased force of hitting the ground from the top rung rather than lower ones. But once you hit the ground, you have no further to fall. CO2 is a thermodynamic sink.
The next rung down from methane sits oil. While oil is a complex mixture, for our simplistic purposes you can think of it as partially burned methane. Oil still has a lot of potential energy (falling from that height would still hurt), but unlike methane it is an easily transported liquid at room temperature and pressure. As such, oil serves many purposes for which methane is unsuitable. However, when compared to methane, you must burn more oil to get the same amount of useful energy – thus producing more CO2 on an equivalent basis.
Further down still is coal. Coal is even more oxidized than oil, sitting closer to the ground. It is also quite dirty, filled with all manner of nasty impurities. But coal is cheap and is a solid. You can literally dig it out of the ground with a pick and shovel, as was done for many decades.
At the lowest rung is wood. Wood, like all plant stuff, is the direct product of photosynthesis (so are coal and oil, of course, but wood just died more recently). In a highly inefficient process, Nature starts with CO2 and begins to climb the ladder using sunshine as the fuel. It doesn’t get very far. Having said that, wood is a fantastic raw material for all kinds of useful stuff, and vegetation is the food that powers all humans, either directly or indirectly.
It makes intuitive sense that if we are using carbon-based materials as a source of energy, we’d want to be at the highest rung possible. This is, in fact, how societies evolve. Wood burning gives way to coal, which eventually gives way to oil and then natural gas as societies can afford cleaner environments. Natural gas is by far the cleanest burning fuel. You can use it directly in your kitchen without ventilation for a reason. Nobody would advise firing up the charcoal barbeque indoors.
What’s less well-known is the same concept holds if you are using carbon-based materials to make stuff. Almost all synthetic materials in modern life start near the top of the ladder and are engineered downward in a controlled burn. This makes intuitive sense. The embedded energy to run the process is at least partially inherent in the starting material. Certain high-value materials are worth pushing up the ladder to obtain, but industry evolved the way it did for a reason – it is easier to slowly slide down than climb up.
Take polyethylene, which is the highest volume production plastic in the world. To say polyethylene is ubiquitous is an understatement. Milk jugs, garbage bags, food packaging, wire and cable applications, pipes – polyethylene is everywhere. Industrially, polyethylene is made by sliding down the ladder: ethane is converted to ethylene, which is then polymerized. Ethane is close to natural gas on our ladder, while polyethylene has virtually the same inherent energy as oil.
In theory, polyethylene could be made from corn, but that involves climbing the ladder with big steps. Corn is made from CO2 on the farm and has an energy content close to wood. To make polyethylene from corn, you first need to produce corn ethanol. Ethanol is higher up the ladder than corn (roughly in line with coal), but much lower than polyethylene. Jumping yet another full rung – while possible – simply doesn’t make economic sense, even with substantial government support. We grow corn because we need to eat. We burn ethanol as a minor additive in gasoline because the government tells us to (Iowa is an early primary state, after all). Even that level of political support can’t take us all the way to polyethylene.
So, where does stuff come from? As you can probably guess by now, it mostly comes from unwanted byproducts of the oil and gas industry (high up the ladder!). Take the aforementioned ethane. Many natural gas fields produce what is known as “wet gas.” The predominate product is methane, but a little ethane, propane, and heavier cats and dogs are included in the mix. These impurities are collectively known as natural gas liquids and are a critical feedstock that enables much of the chemical industry. One person’s annoying impurity is another’s treasured input.
Ethane is fed to a cracker, which produces ethylene. Ethylene is one of perhaps a half-dozen ultra-critical chemicals that form the foundation of virtually all the stuff we make. I can walk around a city block and perform a retro-synthetic analysis of almost everything I see and find my way back to a cracker.
Crackers operate on an almost unimaginable scale. Pictured below is ExxonMobil’s new cracker located in Baytown, Texas. It is rated for 1.5 million tons per year, which is more than 3 billion pounds. A couple of crackers produce roughly a pound of ethylene per year for every living person on the planet. That’s a lot of stuff!
As the opening quote of this piece captures so well, we live in a time where few understand how things get made. It is fine to not know where stuff comes from, but it isn’t fine to not know where stuff comes from while dictating to the rest of us how the economy should be run. In some small way, maybe this piece will educate a few influential minds to participate in a better-informed debate.
We are experiencing the early phases of runaway inflation. On what seems like a daily basis, we observe critical inputs into our economy going vertical in price. If you crimp the supply of critical inputs with no workable plan to replace them, inflation is the unavoidable outcome. Energy is stuff. Energy is life. What’s the price elasticity of demand for life, and who can afford to pay it?
Nobody could have seen this coming, they’ll say. We did.
Carbon capture is absolutely irrelevant (4000 tons vs 40 billion in emissions) to achieving net zero and will stay that way as the cost/ benefit analysis is always going to show that cutting emissions is cheaper than capturing them....but you're getting better Hutchy. Now learn to dig a bit deeper .....
BB - Do you NOW admit ( as the Climate Council says ) that to get to net zero we have to take out CO2 from the system at the same level as we put in ????????????
Please confirm you FINALLY understand what net zero means !!!!!!!!!!
Or are you still as thick as a brick ?
The only reason I had to dig deeper was to find a definition that you would believe and hopefully understand .
No mate, as explained above carbon capture is irrelevant, (one millionth of annual global emissions ffs) and as explained in the link I posted back there, and that you agreed with, it is just another scam by the fossil fuel industry to try and preserve their soon to be stranded assets.
BB - You are a COMPLETE IDIOT .
When I ask do you know now what net zero means you say - No Mate .
You have no idea what net zero means and have no IDEA if it can be ever achieved .
I believe you are RIGHT that carbon capture and storage on large scale is unproven . I believe you are right that we cannot grow enough trees to suck in enough CO2 .
That is why Musk is offering $US100 millions to anyone who can come up with a scalable and durable technology the CAN remove the CO2 that we will always produce .
So either you don't believe we can achieve net zero CO2 in 2050 or you STILL don't understand what net zero MEANS . Or fucken BOTH ! FFS - You are really pissing me off with you attitude to this EXTREMELY simple issue .
That is why I have been asking you repeatedly what technology you think CAN absorb CO2 .
Hutchy you keep asserting, against all available evidence, that CCS or similar is necessary to achieve net zero. It is not. You suffer from ifisayitthreetimesits true disease.
You are BLIND BB .
Do you not understand this part of the fucken Climate Councils definition of net zero ?
"we want to get those scales back into balance, which means no more greenhouse gas can be added to the atmosphere in any given year than is taken out."
It is simple to understand . Why in the fuck can you not get it ?
May be this is helps ? If one surfer paddles into the surf (to an empty line up ) to get to zero surfers in the water he HAS to paddle back in .
My beautiful ex dog could understand net zero . When I put food in her bowl and she ate ( absorbed ) it her bowl would have net zero food in it .
Would someone please try and help BB get this simple point because I surely can't !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really hope everyone else understands what net zero means . Can one of you , who BB will listen to , help him understand this ?
PLEASE . Vic , Roadkill , Connie , Brutus , Craig , Stu ?
"we want to get those scales back into balance, which means no more greenhouse gas can be added to the atmosphere in any given year than is taken out."
Which can be accomplished by drastically cutting emissions until they are equal or less than the amount absorbed by the natural processes of the carbon cycle, (remember that, Year 7 second term? Obviously not.) CCS is unlikely to make any significant difference beyond attracting funds that would be better spent on reducing emissions.
Hooray . You have finally shown your colours ( was harder than drawing hens teeth ) and we can finally move on .
You do live in la la land .
Convince China and all the developing countries to stop trying to bring their people out of poverty .
Convince all the people of the world to drastically reduce their standard of living .
To develop Green technology that never needs to replaced .
To stop building homes and hospitals.
Convince Queenslanders that jobs are not important .
Convince millions they should be culled .
ETC ETC
Convince all those on SN to not drive or fly to the surf .
All in 28 years .
You are an idiot that has NO real world experience . I am REALLY amazed at your naivety . A child's ( kindergarten ) view of the world looking through rose ( green ) coloured glasses .
Same old, same old. When you lose the argument, straight to the insult book.
Someone flopped a steamer in Hutchy's gene pool.
Hutchy...for your interest
BB- so happy we have moved on from the argument on you not getting zero .
Now we can get onto the discussion on how you will convince nearly the entire world to follow your suggestions . This will be fun !!!!!
Sorry to lower myself to your level re the abuse. It was just such a shock that you are so detached from what the REAL world wants or believes . I really should not have been so shocked as you have done a very good job of showing me this before . Sorry again .
Maybe read some IPCC reports to get a handle on some of the science before making a complete goose of yourself over that too. I assume that you now recognise that the bullshit you have been screaming all week (seems longer) about the need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by CCS to achieve net zero is simply wrong.
Thanks udo . Is that you surfing ?
Warmer temp in Melb today and the pool probably reacts quicker than I know .
16 is not bad ( ocean is probably colder ) .
You are just too weird for me Blindone .
I am so sorry I am underestimating your powers of persuasion .
You will need to start spending a lot less time on SN and start convincing people if you plan to get through your list by 2050 .
Hey Hutchy 19. I've found the perfect social media platform for you. It's going to be wall to wall bullshit. You'd love it.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/20/donald-trump-truth-socia...
Don't say I don't do nice things for you.
Vic - Its the Guardian . Not my cup of tea but thanks for thinking of me .
Whats your view on net zero ?
Like BB and think the world needs to come to an end and civilization as we know it ?
Going to give up buying new boards and stop surfing winki ?
Or are you going for Musk's $100 m and coming up with an absorption technology that actually works ?
At least you usually give a straight answer .
Hutchy, Read the article. It's about Trump setting up his own media empire with a social media platform too. Perfect for you. It will be where truth goes to die.
We will be net zero by 2050. Big Business will make it happen. That's where the money is going and anyone who hangs onto coal is going to get burnt.
I will give you an example of how quickly things are moving. A mate of mine is a coal exec. His company has been trying to get projects up in Canada. It's steel making coal of the highest quality. After years of banging away, the neighbouring mine got knocked back on a permit to operate. All the companies in the area took a massive share price hit. eg 90%. After a few months of bumbling around in junk stock territory, my mates company just announced they weren't going to mine coal at their site, but were going to create hydrogen out of renewable energy and use their two dams for pumped hydro.
The day they announced the new plan, their share price went up over 100%.
Coal is a dying industry. Especially thermal stuff. It's game over.
Vic - a great idea as I have already mentioned -" After a few months of bumbling around in junk stock territory, my mates company just announced they weren't going to mine coal at their site, but were going to create hydrogen out of renewable energy and use their two dams for pumped hydro."
Getting the renewable energy to make hydrogen requires solar , wind or hydro energy which requires CO2 to be produced and then stored . These things need to be built , break down , need maintenance and need to be replaced .
Much more CO2 . Even when they all are installed they require CO2 and we need heaps more of them to produce peak load energy .
solar, wind, and hydro need CO2 even when installed?
OK Hutchy, whatever champ.
Are you like having a competition with Indo Dreaming to say the most ridiculous statements on this forum? I thought his "Lauren Southern is a moderate" argument was pretty stupid but you may have trumped him with your opinions about renewable energy.
Vic - Everything occasionally breaks down when installed . It needs to be replaced or fixed . It needs to be checked and monitored .
Hopefully not much compared to the building and installation .
So that is your input ? Normal for you . Nothing helpful just abuse .
Thanks CHAMP .
"Vic - Everything occasionally breaks down when installed . It needs to be replaced or fixed . It needs to be checked and monitored ."
And none of that requires energy that generates CO2.
Hutchy19, you really can talk absolute shit. You make stuff up like renewable energy still creates CO2. Then you try and shift the goal posts pointing to maintenance of renewable energy infrastructure, AND YOU STILL GET IT HOPELESSLY WRONG.
Hutchy, “everything needs CO2”
If components are manufactured using renewable energy then there is a reduction in CO2 output/input.
Renewable energy tends not to emit co2 because there’s no combustion.
Electric vehicles for transport can also reduce CO2 in the chain.
Yes there will be some parts that require older methods, but even mining companies, BHP, Rio and Fortescue, are committed to a reduction in CO2 out put.
An more shitty equivocations Hutchy.
"Australia sought to change a major international report on climate change to promote a future for coal-fired power and downplay the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-22/greenpeace-australia-ipcc-pressur...
Gents
I do understand some of the basics . That a solar panel produces electricity CO2 free . Same with windmills and nuclear .
CO2 is only used to build , replace and maintain .
I am committed to reducing CO2 out put .
So how is CO2 necessary for those processes given that the energy will come from renewables?
how embarrassment!
she goes, she goes, she goes, she just goes, you know?
Good question BB .
We need to build a lot more green infrastructure .
This needs minerals like iron ore , met coal , aluminium , cobalt , nickel ,lithium to be found and dug up out of the ground . This now ( and foreseeable future ) needs to produce CO2 to be done .
These minerals , and many more , are needed to build and maintain the green infrastructure as you know . Bank of America have estimated the $US 150 trillion ins needed to get to net zero by 2050 ( I have previously commented on this extraordinary amount of money ) .
I assume that a lot of this money will be used to build the infrastructure needed . I can then assume that this will produce a lot more CO2 . How much I have no idea.
When the infrastructure breaks down or wears out it needs to be replaced using more CO2 .
Has all this EXTRA CO2 been factored into your equation ? The existing infrastrucure needs to keep going until it is all working DAY and NIGHT and whether its windy or not .
Mate something seems to be seriously impacting your capacity for rational thought.
BB- lets work on one simple fact as that is all you seem to be able to cope with .
Is steel needed to build Green Infrastructure ? There in no CO2 free technology to make steel .
Do you agree ?
A simple no or yes will suffice .
https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/green-steel-is-hail...
Emissions from steel making are about 7% of the total. Energy emissions currently make up over 70% . The path forward is to make the major emission reductions there. Given that we have until 2050 to achieve net zero and there are massive incentives to improve the green steel process I have no idea why you think it is a major problem.
You could have just said yes your right Hutchy .
I hope hydrogen can work in the future . Unfortunately it is unproven . If it does end up working it will take a very long time to scale up .
It will be used , I hope , it small scale situations . Then it may evolve into being used by cars . Maybe aeroplanes , maybe even trains .
It will not be used in steel production until ALL these other applications are used . It might be 7% but it is rising . You haven't told be where the 7% will go to get us to net zero . Into thin air ?
The annual amount of hydrogen that will needed will take decades of building to produce and that is just for cars.
2050 is 28 years away . If things are unproven now they might not be ready to make up for lost time .
Australia will have no chance to get to that level and we make little steel . How will China and the developing world be able to do it ?
Lets move on . Most of the metals I mentioned above need refining . These large stations need 24 hour power 7 days a week . What can we use NOW ?
Please don't link The Conversation articles . In my experience they are not worth talking about ( let alone reading ) .
Green hydrogen in lieu of coal to power the furnaces that treat the iron ore. 'Practicable and implementable' according to Twiggy. He'll provide the technology to his customers. Staking his company on it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0010v0d/hardtalk-andrew-forrest-c...
Well do your own search then. You appear to misunderstand the role of hydrogen in the steel making process. It is used to replace carbon in the chemical reaction that strips oxygen from iron ore. The product of this reaction is water rather than carbon dioxide.
I don't need to do any research . Hydrogen will hopefully replace Met coal . Its simple . Coal is used to heat up the smelter .
What is your idea for 24/7 power for the smelters and refineries ?
Where is the 7% giong to go so we can get to net zero ?
I already know the answers to the questions I am asking you .
Mate don't waste my time. If you have data or a point state it clearly.
BB- you are avoiding simple questions . Why ?
What is your idea for 24/7 power for the smelters and refineries ?
Where is the 7% giong to go so we can get to net zero ?
I will give my answers .
Until we come up with MEGA battery storage ( if it happens it will be 50 years way unfortunately ) or hydrogen at huge scale ( also probably 50 years away ) we need to move to nuclear or still use fissile fuels for smelters , refineries , de sal plants and peak load power .
The 7% will go nowhere but into the atmosphere . It cannot ( as you have agreed ) be absorbed . This will make net zero impossible .
Please don't offer any alternative answers if you agree .
Tomago Smelter, Australia's largest single consumer of power, has committed to 100% renewables by 2029. Since you don't like my links look it up yourself.
Thanks BB - I looked it up and saw the article from the Guardian which I am sure has been your only research . I will ignore other views and use your source .
The move to renewables requires progress on grid scale batteries ( not even enough lithium , cobalt , nickel etc to cater for the EV market and grid scale batteries have not even been invented yet . Teslas largest battery MIGHT run Adelaide for a couple of hours ) . Wind and solar ( the refinery needs energy 24/7 ) . A thermal storage system ( what is this ? ) . Exploring using hydro energy from Bell Mountain ( sounds very advanced ha ha ) .
As their CEO said "we need further improvement on the cost equation before renewables are viable " ,
However he is optimistic ! He fucken needs to be !!!!!
But with all these unknowns and things that are not invented he comes up with an exact date 2029 .
Not 2031 , not 2028 .
Interesting your whole view relies on projects like this !
I just saw this from Blowin "The type of gullible, naive stooge who swallows every word you are fed in the Washington Post as gospel."
Perfect summation .
The CEO will be long gone by 2029 .
What motives , other than getting gullible people to write and believe the tale , does he have to make this prediction ?
Maybe RIO think it will help the ESG investment community to look more kindly on them after they blew up the sacred site .
You get an F for this effort .
Hutchy you should notify them about your concern that the technology will not be ready. I am sure they will be pleased to accept the advice of Mr. Randominternetdude
BB - I am not concerned Mr Gullible . I already think it will not be ready but will be happy if it is .
As you believe this type of project IS needed to get to net Zero you are the one that needs to be concerned . Your credibility is at stake ( not much at stake so do nothing ) .
You always get everything arse about faced . You are REALLY good at it Mr Footinmouth .
Well mate, check back in 2029. I am sure everyone here will welcome you back
Until then your view is only hot air. Mine has the support of the relevant industry.
BB You are so funny . The article proves they have no idea , if or when , they will be 100% renewable .
I will know a long time before 2029 how they are progressing .
So good to hear that you are supporting them in their obviously made up view of their timing . That lack of certainty is just like your views and comments .
You are supporting an aluminium producer !!!!!!! Producing this metal is the HIGHEST consumer of electricity pound for pound in the world . Read again the % of NSW electricity they consume .
I am sure you already know this ( ha ha only joking ) .
"Aluminum production in the United States generally takes two forms, with very different energy requirements. Primary production involves making aluminum products from raw material or ingots, which is highly energy intensive, especially electricity intensive ."
Dear Mr Fantasy. Go away. Get a grip on yourself, no not there! And then try, really try, to get a grip on reality.
.