Deaths from climate change

[cyrano]

If you think that's crazy, the US army once spread 480 millions of needles in the atmosphere, as a way to improve communications...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford

That was in 1948, but the madness hasn't stopped. They recently (2020) tried to burn 20 million gallons of PFAS...

https://earthjustice.org/press/2020...burning-stockpiles-of-toxic-forever-chemicals

You can't burn PFAS. It simply goes into the atmosphere and spreads over vaste areas, potentially the entire Earth.
Of course, they did so even without warning the people living around the incineration plants...

 

[cyrano]

Almost on topic but related. President Biden just blocked permitting for new LNG export terminals. We have excess NG that could be used to help our EU allies reduce funding Russian war efforts.

Personally this should mean lower NG prices here, and my local "clean" (cough) coal power plant has been burning NG since it was turned on a few years ago. I recall recently seeing an electricity cost increase which is contrary to my thesis (I checked and NG prices have been falling since 2022, so recent electricity rate increase is fishy). .

It's a mystery to me why the US govt isn't keeping it's infrastructure up to date.

Japan and China's export uses a lot of mega container ships. They're so big they don't fit in the Suez canal, but it's still economically viable because of their size. There's not one port in the USA that caters to these. Nor are there any plans to upgrade some ports. And ships that carry cars are showing the same trend.

Then there's trains (and public transport in general). Americans who travel (or live) in Europe are amazed by public transport here. We're not so amazed, as we think it could be far better still.

But what's even less comprehensible to me, is the state of the electrical grid in some parts of the USA. A recent study about the demands electrical car chargers will put on the grid showed Europe has some areas that will need to be modernised. The US has more states that should replace the entire production and grid. In fact, there are hardly any states that don't need mega investments. Traveling the US in an electric car seems next to impossible for certain routes.

I suppose weapons come first?

The richest country in the world has no unemployment, hardly any crime, no airport and very few cars. No obese people either. Coincidence?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Scientists Try Risky Air And Water Experiments Hoping To Stop Climate Change

I didn't click on the bait but read a newspaper article this morning describing three different mad scientist climate tweaks.

I suspect that picture may be from a project down in austraila to save coral beds in the great barrier reef that are dying from over heating. The strategy is to spray ocean (salt) water up into the sky to generate cloud cover to cool down the coral reefs. That was easy.

[edit] I just read another article and they are doing more than spraying saltwater, they are seeding clouds with salt crystals. making fog banks for shade, and more.

since the ocean is a huge thermal mass with much colder water at depth, for the energy/effort they are making could they just pump cold water up from depth to cool the coral reefs? /edit]
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a second strategy is to dump chemicals into the ocean to change the water's acidity so it will absorb and sequester atmospheric CO2. That was easy.

==

The third strategy shared in the article was dumping light reflective particles (?) into the upper atmosphere to mimic the cooling from large volcanic eruptions. They declined to share what exactly they were dumbing into the atmosphere.
===
The article made me feel a little uneasy as I did not perceive a solid plan backed by settled science... more like "let's try this"? For a little comedic relief the author was worried that people could abandon zero carbon if they think an easier solution exists...

This is wrong on several levels.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

It's a mystery to me why the US govt isn't keeping it's infrastructure up to date.

It's a mystery to many of us here as well.

Japan and China's export uses a lot of mega container ships. They're so big they don't fit in the Suez canal, but it's still economically viable because of their size. There's not one port in the USA that caters to these. Nor are there any plans to upgrade some ports. And ships that carry cars are showing the same trend.

Large container ports are not environmentally friendly projects. Flattening coastal forests, dredging and filling to turn coastal wetlands and marshes into "land" for port facilities, dredging deep channels for the mega-ships. What's the problem with using the already huge previous generation of container ships?

Then there's trains (and public transport in general). Americans who travel (or live) in Europe are amazed by public transport here. We're not so amazed, as we think it could be far better still.

We have massive freight rail systems here. Even here in my small town we have trains over a mile long. There's a good sized rail yard on the other side of town from me. Out west you can see even longer trains hauling transcontinental freight including containers stacked two high.

As for passenger trains...well, we are much more spread out here than Europe. We have a massive highway network that serves our needs better. I've ridden Italian rail between Rome, Florence, and Naples. It was convenient and reliable. Since we were visiting urban areas it made sense to use it.

I've also ridden the KTX in Korea between Daejeon and Seoul. It was also nice, but getting to the station from my hotel in Daejeon took 45 minutes in a cab. And it was an hour long limo bus ride from the Seoul station to Incheon airport. Total trip time was almost the same as taking a limo bus from Daejeon to Incheon (which I did several other times I was there). Maybe they have extended the line to the airport now (my last trip was c.2009).

But what's even less comprehensible to me, is the state of the electrical grid in some parts of the USA. A recent study about the demands electrical car chargers will put on the grid showed Europe has some areas that will need to be modernised. The US has more states that should replace the entire production and grid. In fact, there are hardly any states that don't need mega investments. Traveling the US in an electric car seems next to impossible for certain routes.

First off, why would any country or utility invest in massive excess generation and transmission capacity? That infrastructure costs huge sums to construct and maintain. It was only recently that idiots in government foisted unrealistic mandates with equally unrealistic timelines on we the peons. Guess what? It takes a long time to add 30-50% grid capacity.

Second, some states have had poor governance of utilities for decades. CA has its Public Utilitiy Commission which has become a politicized organ of the Democratic Party there. They have forced PG&E (which has it own problems) to implement policies counter to sanity. So instead of spending on maintenance of existing transmission/distribution they've had to sink money into green projects, subsidized energy for the poor, etc. Add to that the rabidly anti-nuclear and now anti-fossil fuel cabal in CA is in trouble.

The home I owned in CA for 22 years had increasing numbers and durations of outages over that time. Yes, it was in a rural and mountainous area. Winter storms off the Pacific caused damage most years. With some it took 5-7 days to restore service (we had propane for hot water and cooking, a wood stove for backup heat, and a 5kgal gravity fed water tank so no problems). But in the last few years there were outages in clear summer weather.

Then the lawyers went after PGE for fires (recall they were mandated to spend funds other than for maintenance). So they implemented a safety shutdown policy in response. Any time there was a forecast for wind in the dry season they shut down power in regions affected. The kicker was that before restoring power ALL lines in the shut down areas had to be visibly inspected first. For our area that took 1.5-2 days. So a 6 hour wind event would cause a 2 day outage. Multiple times per month. The afternoon when we were finishing loading our Penske rental truck to begin our cross-country move the nect morning, the power went out. It was still out when we drove away the next morning.

Now contrast that with my current situation. I'm in a small southern state in a rural area a few miles from a small town. My house is on a hill and we get a good bit of wind here and some nasty thunderstorms. We have had one outage that lasted under an hour since we moved 2.5 years ago. This state also has several nuclear generation plants. Infrastructure is maintained and quickly repaired. Power pricing is about 1/3 the rate we paid in CA (rates there were variable depending on total monthly use and time of use).

I suppose weapons come first?

Maybe you can help encourage the European members of NATO to pull their own weight instead of expecting Uncle Sam to do the heavy lifting.

The richest country in the world has no unemployment, hardly any crime, no airport and very few cars. No obese people either. Coincidence?

It's a lot easier to manage a tiny monocultural country with the population of a medium sized city. Hardly a reasonable comparison.

 

[fazer]

They have forced PG&E (which has it own problems) to implement policies counter to sanity. So instead of spending on maintenance of existing transmission/distribution they've had to sink money into green projects,

Never thought of this before. It explains negligence on PG&E in a new way. What a beautiful state being ruined by cit and state representatives lost in abstract wokism.

I removed my migrant addition which is not relevant to the thread.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Here's a piece from last year that explains some of what's been happening in CA.

https://www.sandiegonewsdesk.com/20...y-bills-climate-mandates-add-even-more-costs/

 

[cyrano]

I'm slowly starting to see why problems can't be fixed. They're always caused by the other camp...

The only obvious solution is total eradication of the other camp. Of course, that would end in dictatorship. Now, who has stated he wouldn't mind being a dictator, if only for one day?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Never thought of this before. It explains negligence on PG&E in a new way. What a beautiful state being ruined by cit and state representatives lost in abstract wokism.

I removed my migrant addition which is not relevant to the thread.

I think I have shared before that my sister in law works for PG&E (the reason my brother has not finished moving from CA yet).

She/they are very critical of PG&E management. The largest recent cluster-fsk is promising to bury miles of transmission lines traveling through wooded areas. It is unclear where the money will come from to pay for that very expensive effort.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Sometimes even I underestimate the potential for technology to solve modern problems. Today I read a newspaper article about deep geothermal drilling. For those who were sleeping in class that day, our core is molten rock, so there is relatively unlimited heat energy to extract.

The cost to drill holes miles deep underground is not cheap. Historically our geothermal efforts are limited to regions where the heat is not so deep underground.

The article talked about two different new technologies that promise cheaper drilling. It still sounds expensive to me ($B), but cheaper than alternate energy sources. In an ideal world they can drill new holes to extract geothermal energy to re-energize old coal power plants. That sounds sweet.

The two approaches were some kind of plasma drilling. One uses superheated steam to break down rock, the other was perhaps electrical plasma.

Nobody is talking about this technology but at least one major oil driller (Nabors?) is pursuing....

JR

In the two years since I first noted potential for extracting geothermal energy from deep oil/gas wells, I hear about more activity. Some are converting old abandoned deep wells for geothermal extraction. Some active drillers are incorporating geothermal extractions into existing active oilfields. There is not enough thermal gradient to drive a steam turbine directly but using different working fluids with lower vaporization temperature can transfer heat from water to the more volatile working fluid and power a turbine.

Waste not want not....

JR

PS: I just decided to add a second mini-split heat pump to my house. I have been using a single mitsubishi split to heat/cool my entire house for the last 5 years and it is marginal during extremely cold or very hot weather. I have baseboard resistance heat in my back bedroom to supplement heat during winter months. Adding a second heat pump will allow me to rip out the resistance baseboard units, and reduce my energy usage even more, while comfortably dealing with even colder/hotter weather extremes.

 

[ruffrecords]

Taking of crazy, here is what is happening in Germany right now:

The windmills are spinning golden subsidies in the central German ‘fairy tale’ forest of Reinhardswald, but the payment is the partial destruction of the 1,000 year-old ancient wood itself. Work has started on the clearing of up to 120,000 trees in the forest, the setting for many of the Brothers Grimm mythical stories, to provide access for an initial 18 giant wind turbines around the Sababurg ‘Sleeping Beauty’ castle. Who is opposing this massive destruction of the ancient forest teeming with wildlife with trees over 200 years old? Certainly not the Green party, now in power at national and local level. In fact the project is being led by local Hesse Green Minister Priska Hinz who is reported to have said: “Wind energy makes a decisive contribution to the energy transition and the preservation of nature. It is the only way to preserve forests and important ecosystems."

Cheers

Ian

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Taking of crazy, here is what is happening in Germany right now:



Cheers

Ian

Green hypocrisy strikes again. Ridiculous.

 

[jabe]

Taking of crazy, here is what is happening in Germany right now:

I got curious because you didn't provide a source. It turns out to come from something The Daily Sceptic, whose About page states they "this climate of Maoist intolerance that is sweeping through our most important institutions and companies". Hm.
Anyways the important part is that their claim that "up to 120,000 trees" is unsourced. It turns out "up to 120,000" includes the actual number, about 250. They're building the turbines in parts of the forest that are already cleared by storms, bark beetles, etc. The trees being removed are damaged and non-native.
https://web.archive.org/web/2023102...enehmigt-v1,windraeder-reinhardswald-100.html

 

[jabe]

Oh this is fun. The average tree density in Germany is 24,000 per square km. 120,000 trees would be about 4% of the forest. Still not great, if it were true. The developer stated they'd clear about 0.07%, again all dead trees. They could be lying but again, that 120 000 figure seems to come from absolutely nowhere...

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am not a huge fan of wind turbines, another mature technology embraced as "new" again. There is one very old windmill a couple hundred yards from my house. Probably used to pump water out of a well... these days it mainly just squeaks during very windy days.

Economic woes and canceled contracts​

A year and half ago, the U.S. offshore wind industry looked nearly unstoppable. But global financial challenges and supply chain backlogs of the post-pandemic era, followed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, complicated everything.

The problems first surfaced in Massachusetts when two offshore wind developers announced that the large projects they had signed contracts for were "no longer viable" under the terms of their existing agreements.

Offshore wind farms cost billions to build, so even a small rise in interest rates or the cost of steel can send the price tag of a project soaring. The two companies unsuccessfully pleaded with Massachusetts the state to let them charge more for the electricity, and ultimately ended up backing out of their contracts. Both companies have promised to re-bid their projects, just at a higher cost, during Massachusetts' next round of offshore wind solicitations in early 2024.

Similar economic issues surfaced in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. Even in Northern Europe, where offshore wind turbines have been in the water for decades, upcoming projects face unprecedented economic challenges and potential delays.

A major setback to the industry​

For a while, offshore wind experts said the industry was simply undergoing a market correction and making up for overly optimistic bids — the projects weren't abandoned, people noted; they just needed new contracts.

Then, in late October, Ørsted, the world's largest offshore wind developer, canceled two projects it had proposed for New Jersey. The decision, which the company blamed on economic challenges and supply chain bottlenecks, shook the offshore wind world.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy called the move "outrageous." Opponents of offshore wind jumped on the news, pointing to it as further evidence that building turbines in the ocean is bad policy and financially irresponsible. Meanwhile, environmentalists quietly worried that other cancellations would follow.

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/27/1221...headwinds-in-2023-heres-what-you-need-to-know

Here's a 1970 picture of me in the German Kisselvind forest, doing what soldiers do in the woods after drinking German bier.


Objects in photo may appear larger than actual.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

I got curious because you didn't provide a source. It turns out to come from something The Daily Sceptic, whose About page states they "this climate of Maoist intolerance that is sweeping through our most important institutions and companies". Hm.
Anyways the important part is that their claim that "up to 120,000 trees" is unsourced. It turns out "up to 120,000" includes the actual number, about 250. They're building the turbines in parts of the forest that are already cleared by storms, bark beetles, etc. The trees being removed are damaged and non-native.
https://web.archive.org/web/2023102...enehmigt-v1,windraeder-reinhardswald-100.html

Yet this is one of the few intact large forest ecosystems extant in Germany. Nothing like taking an ecological site (and popular hiking destination) and crapping it up with ugly man-made structures visible for miles. And don't forget the roads that must be built to construct and access the wind towers. The larger ones have blades 100m+ in length and require wide access with limited curves. That will look beautiful in the natural setting and will require more clearing, erosion management, etc.

A forest ecosystem is not just trees. It's the undergrowth, the fungus, the duff, the insects and animals, and all the rest. Not the place for development if you care about being green. Once installed, those massive concrete foundations will be there for millenia.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Oh this is fun. The average tree density in Germany is 24,000 per square km. 120,000 trees would be about 4% of the forest. Still not great, if it were true. The developer stated they'd clear about 0.07%, again all dead trees. They could be lying but again, that 120 000 figure seems to come from absolutely nowhere...

What kind of terrible logic is that? How much of Germany is farmland, open pit mines, industrial sites, and cities which have few if any trees? You can't pretend the average density of an actual forest is represented by the average over the whole country. How can you defend something so stupid as this plan?

 

[JohnRoberts]

I expect most pristine forests have already been harvested for ship building or shelter several centuries ago. Any remaining trees and forest are likely kept for aesthetic reasons. If they (Germany) as a nation prefer wind turbines to trees they are a free nation so enjoy. I was disappointed by their decision to shut down working nuclear power plants after the Fukushima scare but that is the nature of modern public policy.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

I expect most pristine forests have already been harvested for ship building or shelter several centuries ago. Any remaining trees and forest are likely kept for aesthetic reasons. If they (Germany) as a nation prefer wind turbines to trees they are a free nation so enjoy. I was disappointed by their decision to shut down working nuclear power plants after the Fukushima scare but that is the nature of modern public policy.

JR

Do a search. 200+ year old and many trees much older. Impressive place (looking at pics on the web).

 

[ruffrecords]

Oh this is fun. The average tree density in Germany is 24,000 per square km. 120,000 trees would be about 4% of the forest. Still not great, if it were true. The developer stated they'd clear about 0.07%, again all dead trees. They could be lying but again, that 120 000 figure seems to come from absolutely nowhere...

You miss the pint the GREEN minister in charge said "Wind energy makes a decisive contribution to the energy transition and the preservation of nature. It is the only way to preserve forests and important ecosystems."

Note the part in bold.

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

Do a search. 200+ year old and many trees much older. Impressive place (looking at pics on the web).

and I said harvested centurie"s" ago...

It was published exactly 300 years ago, in the year 1713, in Leipzig. Carlowitz combines descriptions of useful tree varieties with practical suggestions for a long-term solution to the timber shortage. He calls for a cautious use of wood, which is "as important as our daily bread"....
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The efforts to shape the composition of forest tree species in a more semi-natural way have been crowned with success. Approx. 73 % of German forests nowadays consist of mixed stands. Spruce accounts for the largest share among the tree species (28 %), followed by pine (23 %), beech trees (
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the timber harvest volume 1.1 Forest Area Forests cover 32 percent (11.4 million hectares) of Germany's territory, making it one of Europe's most forested countries. Since World War II, the forest area has been expanded by more than 1.5 million hectares, and home to some 90 billion trees, which translates

You miss the pint the GREEN minister in charge said "Wind energy makes a decisive contribution to the energy transition and the preservation of nature. It is the only way to preserve forests and important ecosystems."

Note the part in bold.

Cheers

Ian

No I am drinking a pint (of Johnny Beer).
==
The climate crowd has a loose to non-existent connection with reality.

I suspect we all mostly agree... Europe has been densely populated for many(?) centuries... forests are a historic luxury that if anything they are working to restore. Alternately Europe has many offshore wind farms.

America by comparison has lots of open space and lots of trees, not as many wind farms. The same ideology has infected the low information crowd here too. Just different strokes....

JR