Deaths from climate change

[JohnRoberts]

Undoubtedly cheaper than the half-functioning nuclear plant that we Georgians have had to pay for. It's been more than a decade that we (not the Southern Co., which gets to keep its profits high in spite of massive delays and cost overruns) have been paying for this thing, and just this year one of two units finally got connected to the grid--accompanied by yet another rate hike.

Vogtle 3 and 4?

#3 Has reportedly been tested at 100% power, and #4 has been hot tested without nuclear fuel loaded. Thanks to government regulatory help these projects take years longer and $B of more budget to bring online.

At least you will end up with relatively modern technology, not a science fair project like clean coal. It looks like #3 has missed it's in service target date of June but seems pretty close. #4 is probably more like Q1 2024

The southern company is pretty proud of the "zero carbon" exhaust. It seems that the climate change community should embrace nuclear energy more than they do. The Westinghouse AP1000 design uses passive nuclear safety features so should not melt down if mismanaged.

JR

 

[jabe]

Seriously? they want to control the public and everything they can about the private sector.

The government has passed little meaningful legislation and countering viewpoints are freely, widely available. I genuinely don't understand what "subservience" you think "the low-information public" is being bent towards. As a side note, your propensity to label those you disagree with as "low information" is odd, given that your viewpoint is at odds with peer-reviewed science.

It seems that the climate change community should embrace nuclear energy more than they do.

Perhaps, but if nothing else nuclear is very, very expensive and takes a long time to implement.

If it indeed cuts both ways, how is it that companies that offshore their manufacturing to...

I was talking about sources of funding for climate research, not whether practices of any large industries in general cause environmental harm. If want to rant about people not talking about issues in the exact way you deem fit, there's no need to quote me first.

 

[JohnRoberts]

The government has passed little meaningful legislation and countering viewpoints are freely, widely available.

Again seriously..? The recent (very large) government spending bills have been a $T boondogle for climate programs. We have seen this before. Look at the subsidies for EVs and the like. Besides legislation POTUS has used executive orders to suppress expansion of fossil fuel supply. President Biden shut down the Keystone XL pipeline by revoking the government permit.

I genuinely don't understand what "subservience" you think "the low-information public" is being bent towards.

Accept higher gas prices and energy bills, all to save mother earth under the threat of a fake existential crisis .

As a side note, your propensity to label those you disagree with as "low information" is odd, given that your viewpoint is at odds with peer-reviewed science.

Um no, I think the manipulators are smart enough to know what they are doing. They somehow think it is justified to bend the truth to get the public to buy into their zero carbon anti fossil fuel agenda..

Perhaps, but if nothing else nuclear is very, very expensive and takes a long time to implement.

mainly because of government regulation... several large nuclear plant makers have been driven out of business by the cost over runs and delays .

There are newer (safer) nuclear technologies, mostly being explored elsewhere (China, India, etc) to avoid the US regulatory burden.

I was talking about sources of funding for climate research, not whether practices of any large industries in general cause environmental harm. If want to rant about people not talking about issues in the exact way you deem fit, there's no need to quote me first.

You are handy...

we both seem to think this issue is already settled, but drawing two completely different conclusions.

JR

 

[Matador]

mainly because of government regulation...

Sources of Cost Overrun in Nuclear Power Plant Construction Call for a New Approach to Engineering Design

We document cost escalation in nuclear technology with time, even among plants of nominally standard design. Decomposing individual plant costs, we identify declining labor productivity as a major driver of cost increase over time, which we study mechanistically through a case study of the reactor containment building.
...
The rising costs of nuclear plants are often assumed to be associated with increasing stringency of safety regulations (e.g., MacKerron and Komanoff49,86). Here, we estimate that prescriptive safety requirements can be associated with approximately one-third of the direct containment cost increase between 1976 and 2017.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Sources of Cost Overrun in Nuclear Power Plant Construction Call for a New Approach to Engineering Design

blaming it on labor? and prescriptive safety requirement (for 33%).

The industry, or what's left of it, has looked into mass production of reactor sub systems to reduce the every day is inventing a new wheel cost. Of course that is a gross oversimplification.

===
Sadly my cloudy crystal ball only sees nuclear energy as a bridge technology to provide us with cost effective energy for the next several decades. By then we should have something cheaper and more effective figured out (of course I don't know what that will be). IMO the public rejection of nuclear energy is a huge missed opportunity and the clock is running.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

The government has passed little meaningful legislation and countering viewpoints are freely, widely available. I genuinely don't understand what "subservience" you think "the low-information public" is being bent towards. As a side note, your propensity to label those you disagree with as "low information" is odd, given that your viewpoint is at odds with peer-reviewed science.


Perhaps, but if nothing else nuclear is very, very expensive and takes a long time to implement.


I was talking about sources of funding for climate research, not whether practices of any large industries in general cause environmental harm. If want to rant about people not talking about issues in the exact way you deem fit, there's no need to quote me first.

What you posted in response to JR's "follow the money" comment was an article (duplicated across nearly all mainstream media outlets, I might add) decrying the 2022 profits made by "Big Oil." Reuters is paywalled, so I can only read the summary and first paragraph, neither of which mention anything about funding climate research. In other words, your intended purpose was not clear from your post.

And your inability to hold other large companies to a similar standard is revealing. I'm not ranting, simply pointing out the double standards and/or lack of big picture view (or is it bias and cherry picking) in your arguments.

 

[ruffrecords]

They have changed the nomenclature but I don't see how that's moving the goal posts.

Not really, they have extended 'man made global warming' (AGW) to include almost any supposedly 'abnormal' weather event (climate change) and that is definitely a significant goalpost shift.

They've been consistent in stating that the average temperature is not simply rising but is doing so at an abnormally high rate, and that this unusual rate of change will be disruptive, and is primarly caused by humans.

This is completely true but have failed to provide any evidence for it.

Cheers

Ian

 

[cyrano]

No, I don't think he should donate his pension to charity. I just want to point out the hypocrisy of someone living off the oil business whilst virtue signaling and throwing soup at paintings and shouting just stop oil.

Some of them were hired to study the dangers of oil production and then were stopped from publishing their findings. One of them, at least, predicted the dead zone in the gulf. Again, the science was kept in-house. They have nothing to do with soup-throwing or other ridiculous forms of protest. They can only speak openly about it because they are retired now.

How's that hypocrisy?

Also, what exactly do you mean by "believers will believe"? I read you saying it over and over but I am not entirely sure what you mena, also, does the phrase apply as well to the Greta Thunberg crowd and those who believe the Earth will die in a few decades, or not?

It seems some people are genetically programmed to believe, while others don't fall for fairy tales.

One interesting detail is that the group of believers has doubled in the last century. It's not clear why and if education will help.

 

[cyrano]

Consistent? You may not remember back in the 70s when Carl Sagan warned about "Nuclear Winter". This was anti nuclear weapons but again trying to scare the public with threat of global disaster.

So trying to avoid a nuclear war isn't worth a little drama?

I see your "senator snowball" and raise you the Greta crowd who have been claiming that we would be underwater by now. Al Gore, has a nice little business making up BS about the climate.

The Greta crowd never claimed "we" would be under water by now. Maybe you can ask the Netherlands? They are about the only country that is prepared for the rise of sea levels. Coincidentally, they also are the world leaders when it comes to water engineering...

Seriously? they want to control the public and everything they can about the private sector. By claiming that climate change is an existential threat they claim that it is an emergency that justifies extraordinary measures. Not unlike the imaginary dog food crisis.

If that's true, they are doing a terrible job. They can't keep the citizens from killing themselves, can't control crime and can't control major corporations.

In my judgement the topic is "what should we do about climate change". IMO we should be doing more research and less trying to scare the low information public into subservience.

Yet you keep denying the science that has been done. Rising temperatures and rising sea-levels are real.

Yet only one of the dozen climate models used by our own government shows rapid temperature rise. the rest show only low single digit temperature (?) rises a century into the future. The 1.5'C temperature rise target is purely arbitrary used to help anchor a public response.

Maybe your govt isn't really good at educating their citizens. That shouldn't surprise you if you take the pile of money the industry has been spending to get their way into account?

Cutting carbon emissions to zero will cost the world economy $T that would be better spent adapting to the modest temperature rise. Honest climate scientists will admit that even cutting carbon emissions to zero will make only a tiny difference to climate behavior.

Nobody wants to cut carbon emissions to zero, John, as it is impossible. It's one of the arguments the deniers keep repeating ad infinitum. It's just one of the things we need to control to avoid disaster.

That disaster comes from different things, not from warming in se. It could come fi from the mercury that is contained in the permafrost. Only, we don't know how much mercury will be freed into the oceans. We do know however that just a few hundred kg is enough to poison all marine life to the level that it becomes unsuited for human consumption.

And that's not the only thing that's problematic. It might also release disease. But that hasn't even been studied yet...

 

[user 37518]

It seems some people are genetically programmed to believe, while others don't fall for fairy tales.

One interesting detail is that the group of believers has doubled in the last century. It's not clear why and if education will help.

Believers of what? And if you are implying about God. What does believing in God has to do with not trusting climate catastrophe? Are you implying that believers who do not follow the main climate catastrophe rhetoric is because of lack of education? You seem to attack me on the fact that I believe in God, yet, you know nothing about me or my qualifications.

 

[JohnRoberts]

So trying to avoid a nuclear war isn't worth a little drama?

it certainly is worth avoiding, but allowing Iran to join the nuclear club is not an obvious path to peace.

The Greta crowd never claimed "we" would be under water by now. Maybe you can ask the Netherlands? They are about the only country that is prepared for the rise of sea levels. Coincidentally, they also are the world leaders when it comes to water engineering...

exactly, that's called adaptation and humans have been doing it for centuries. Low cost energy from fossil fuels will help power earth moving machinery to build dikes or whatever as needed.

If that's true, they are doing a terrible job. They can't keep the citizens from killing themselves, can't control crime and can't control major corporations.

?

Yet you keep denying the science that has been done. Rising temperatures and rising sea-levels are real.

Indeed temperature and sea levels are objective facts that no credible scientist can deny. I have explained many times that is the if this/then that bait and switch used to suppress thoughtful analysis. As I have said multiple times already, the actual question is how do we respond to warming and rising sea levels. Cutting carbon use to zero will not do squat, it is a feel good posturing exercise.

Maybe your govt isn't really good at educating their citizens. That shouldn't surprise you if you take the pile of money the industry has been spending to get their way into account?

our education system is not very good. And it has been made worse by mismanaging the response to covid. A whole generation will be coming up to bat with two strikes against them.

Nobody wants to cut carbon emissions to zero,

pretty long list calling for net-zero or carbon neutral energy

John, as it is impossible.

it is surely impractical

It's one of the arguments the deniers keep repeating ad infinitum.

I deny the stupid government polices....

It's just one of the things we need to control to avoid disaster.

That disaster comes from different things, not from warming in se. It could come fi from the mercury that is contained in the permafrost. Only, we don't know how much mercury will be freed into the oceans. We do know however that just a few hundred kg is enough to poison all marine life to the level that it becomes unsuited for human consumption.

that sounds pretty spectacular tons of mercury released... Mercury is pretty toxic we might want to avoid that.

And that's not the only thing that's problematic. It might also release disease. But that hasn't even been studied yet...

I'm sure they will add it to the arguments.

JR

 

[jabe]

I am amused that this discussion is basically:
"Follow the money."
"The oil industry spends lots of money to..."
"No, not that money."
Earlier there were criticisms about the current administration releasing strategic reserves to reduce petroleum costs (to "buy votes"). Now they're conspiring to jack up petroleum costs (to make people "subservient"). And of course no mention of how they've approved significantly more leases for drilling on public land in their first two years' than in the same time frame.
The use of the phrase "Greta crowd" is supremely silly. I literally never hear her name except when conservatives rage about her for the umpteenth time.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am amused that this discussion is basically:
"Follow the money."
"The oil industry spends lots of money to..."
"No, not that money."

you got me there, this is not about money but power and control... while money is closely linked to power.

Earlier there were criticisms about the current administration releasing strategic reserves to reduce petroleum costs (to "buy votes").

truth.. but to be clear I actually complemented the Biden administration on the "trade", selling oil for more than it was purchased for years ago. Now they need to refill the SPR. At the moment world oil prices are trending down because of under the table sales by Iran and Russia to China and India. Oil is fungible so any sales affect world supply/demand in the margin. If/when the recession predicted by the inverted yield curve hits that will lower consumption and oil prices. So the refill trade may remain profitable (assuming they refill it soon). The Vote buying behavior is pretty transparent. Despite SCOTUS thwarting the student loan debt giveaway, they are still trying to figure out a way. Legally a give away on that scale must be done by congress which is unlikely.

Now they're conspiring to jack up petroleum costs (to make people "subservient").

I recall back during the Obama administration when his Secretary of energy accidentally told the truth

“Somehow,” Chu said, “we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

And of course no mention of how they've approved significantly more leases for drilling on public land in their first two years' than in the same time frame.

a classic Demo talking point ignoring the permitting process and other factors involved.

July 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) cut its forecast for 2023 U.S. crude oil production by 50,000 barrels per day after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies extended output cuts through 2024.

Crude oil production is expected to rise 670,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 12.56 million bpd this year, less than a prior forecast calling for a gain of 720,000 bpd, the EIA said on Tuesday in its Short Term Energy Outlook.

The use of the phrase "Greta crowd" is supremely silly. I literally never hear her name except when conservatives rage about her for the umpteenth time.

If the shoe fits.... Her full time job (climate activist) is trying to be in the news. Recently she made news for an old tweet.

Thunberg did delete a tweet from her account from 2018 that read, "A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years."

She is not the first or only climate alarmist to hyperbolically exaggerate climate forecasts. I could have just as easily said the John Kerry Crowd. I expect you understood what I meant. John Kerry (President Joe Biden's Special Envoy for Climate) is scheduled to be questioned by congress today about government climate spending.

I have been writing and arguing about this same stuff for years. Some days I feel like Sisyphus rolling that same rock up the hill, only to be rolled down again.

JR

 

[user 37518]

The use of the phrase "Greta crowd" is supremely silly. I literally never hear her name except when conservatives rage about her for the umpteenth time.

Absolutely not, Greta is an icon for the elites and climate extremists. The phrase the "Greta crowd" perfectly depicts those fanatics following a child who preaches doomsday stories.

 

[jabe]

a classic Demo talking point ignoring the permitting process and other factors involved.

The fact any additional leases have been granted contradicts the premise that the administration is trying to jack up petroleum prices.

I recall back during the Obama administration when his Secretary of energy accidentally told the truth

I also recall that, but as long as you're quoting the Secretary of Energy from two administrations ago:
"So are you saying you no longer share the view that we need to figure out how to boost gasoline prices in America?” Lee asked. “I no longer share that view,” Chu replied. “When I became secretary of Energy, I represented the U.S. government,” Chu added. “Of course we don’t want the price of gasoline to go up, we want it to go down.”

Absolutely not, Greta is an icon for the elites and climate extremists. The phrase the "Greta crowd" perfectly depicts those fanatics following a child who preaches doomsday stories.

Perfect example of the silliness. Thunberg is indeed now an icon. (And seemingly a highly successful one given the amount of space she occupies in climate change deniers' heads.) But you atttempt to translate that to "following a child", when in fact people are believing the scientific consensus.

 

[user 37518]

Perfect example of the silliness. Thunberg is indeed now an icon. (And seemingly a highly successful one given the amount of space she occupies in climate change deniers' heads.) But you atttempt to translate that to "following a child", when in fact people are believing the scientific consensus.

Since when is Greta a scientist and not a child? Well, perhaps she is now, what, 20-21? but back in the "how dare you?" days, she was underage... She doesn't even have a degree, AFAIK. Scientific consensus...

BTW Consensus doesn't mean a thing...

 

[Matador]

Since when is Greta a scientist and not a child?

She is no more or less qualified than most Brewery posters.

 

[user 37518]

She is no more or less qualified than most Brewery posters.

Absolutely true, which further proves my point and shows the absurdity of her being the spokesperson for the climate catastrophe community and those who follow her. It completely discredits the whole "scientific" argument.

 

[scott2000]

She is no more or less qualified than most Brewery posters

Be pretty funny if we all picked our own avatar of a species of Psittacidae..lol
There's like over 300 of them....

 

[ruffrecords]

BTW Consensus doesn't mean a thing...

Indeed. Back in the Middle Ages the consensus was that the sun revolved around the earth and the consequences of denial were deadly.

Not much different today.

Cheers

Ian

 

[cyrano]

Believers of what?

The Flying Spaghetti monster, for all I care.

And if you are implying about God. What does believing in God has to do with not trusting climate catastrophe?

That should be obvious, but I wasn't implying religious people don't trust climate science, or science in general. I've never seen the numbers.

Are you implying that believers who do not follow the main climate catastrophe rhetoric is because of lack of education?

Lack of education certainly won't help, would it?

You seem to attack me on the fact that I believe in God, yet, you know nothing about me or my qualifications.

Some people trust facts and science, some believe what they read in the gutter press. Oh, believing in a god seems to make you happier and live longer. So it's not all bad, is it? Especially if any god will do...

I don't know a lot about you, but that doesn't matter, as it wasn't a personal attack, but the expression of an opinion, based on knowledge.

 

[jabe]

Since when is Greta a scientist and not a child?

Who cares? Literally no one is saying to act on climate change simply because she says so.

Back in the Middle Ages the consensus was that the sun revolved around the earth and the consequences of denial were deadly.

Good thing we're not in the Middle Ages, and are instead in an age of the scientific method, peer review, etc. Which is not to claim that the scientific community is infallible, of course. But given their success in, well, pulling civilization out of the Middle Ages, many of us are not so inclined to easily dismiss their findings.
I am reminded of a time not so long ago when the denial crowd was primarily still claiming warming wasn't happening at all (see again Sen. Inhofe's snowball stunt). They were waving around an old Time magazine cover that asked if a new Ice Age was coming, as evidence that the scienrific community couldn't keep their story straight. A cursory examination of the facts revealed that a single study formed the basis of Time's very faulty article, and that it was thoroughly debunked by many other scientists. Yet wave that old magazine cover they did.

 

[JohnRoberts]

The fact any additional leases have been granted contradicts the premise that the administration is trying to jack up petroleum prices.

huh?

I also recall that, but as long as you're quoting the Secretary of Energy from two administrations ago:
"So are you saying you no longer share the view that we need to figure out how to boost gasoline prices in America?” Lee asked. “I no longer share that view,” Chu replied. “When I became secretary of Energy, I represented the U.S. government,” Chu added. “Of course we don’t want the price of gasoline to go up, we want it to go down.”

well duh... He said it casually while in Europe and didn't expect it to get picked up in the US press.

Perfect example of the silliness. Thunberg is indeed now an icon. (And seemingly a highly successful one given the amount of space she occupies in climate change deniers' heads.) But you atttempt to translate that to "following a child", when in fact people are believing the scientific consensus.

She is just a popular example of climate hyperbole, not the only one.

John Kerry didn't answer many questions in his testimony before congress yesterday.

=====

I wasn't looking for this but coincidentally I read an article this morning about a group in Princeton University that helps guide (government) climate decisions.

The US government is spending $Billions/$Trillions to address climate change. The group was involved in crafting the "Inflation Reduction Act" that was clearly a climate spending bill. They have a "REPEAT" (Rapid energy policy and analysis toolkit). REPEAT is a collaboration between Zero Labs and the consulting firm Advanced Energy Research.

Prof Jenkin's team determined that the IRA (Inflation reduction act) would be a failure without a massive upgrade to the power distribution networks. Over the last 4 years Jenkin's lab has landed $6M in funds from non-profits, government agencies, Bill Gate's "Breakthrough Energy", and corporate giants. About the only thing I agree with is that our power distribution infrastructure is insufficient if they succeed in outlawing IC automobiles and trucks. That said I do not agree with outlawing fossil fuels.

JR

 

[cyrano]

Six million is peanuts, really.

I also don't understand where people get the idea that outlawing internal combustion engines is what's proposed. That's just a lie. And a big one that gets repeated time and time again. Always by the same people who apparently need a mantra to cling to.

What we want, is clean exhaust. Hydrogen as a solution has the benefit that it can be "burnt" cleanly in a classic engine and in a fuel cell.

Oldfashioned tech, like engines has reached the peak of it's performance. It will still be around for years to come.

The next problem we need to tackle, isn't the propulsion. We already have the tech for propulsion with clean exhaust. It's the rest of the hazardous materials: brake- and tire dust. That'll be a harder nut to crack.

And then we need to look at asphalt and how we can replace it with something that's not so unhealthy.

 

[user 37518]

Good thing we're not in the Middle Ages, and are instead in an age of the scientific method, peer review, etc. Which is not to claim that the scientific community is infallible, of course. But given their success in, well, pulling civilization out of the Middle Ages, many of us are not so inclined to easily dismiss their findings.

Have you published a peer reviewed paper before? I have, and I can assure you that it is not what you think. The scientific community, or rather, the scientific maffia, is extremely biased. The success of a paper being published heavily depends on whether your paper agrees with the reviewers vision of things, whether your paper does not offer competition to their previous work, whether there are important names in the list of authors, and many more unscientific and biased reasons. More over, if you paper goes against what is considered scientific consensus it will have a lot less chances of being published due to fear of being ostracized by the academic community.

When scientists perform a study they already have the outcome they want in mind before they actually conduct the study, they tell you that they are being completely objective, that is false, being completely objective and obtaining boring and uninteresting results doesn't get you published and these scientists make a living out of publications.

Again, scientific consensus doesn't mean a thing....

Also, a lot of data is falsified or merely wrong:



Completely erroneous conclusions have successfully passed the "peer-reviewed" test:



P.S. People have a very twisted idea of the middle ages, it is not what they have led us to believe, about these fools living in a dark cave in a castle, sitting on top of their own filth and thinking non-sense. I have read a lot about the middle ages, and the middle ages philosophers, many of them were absolutely brilliant. In many ways it was the opposite, what people today call the age of enlightment was a return to sophism and a denial of objective truth.