Does the Reality of Global Warming Burn Your Arse?

What are we forcing? We are offering. They can accept or decline.

Otherwise, they can find a company that wants something from them and negotiate the building of the coal plant. That is the way these things should be done.

We build a coal plant. The people need Coal, right? They have to be able to pay those rates. If they aren't paying their bills the plant cannot afford to buy coal. The plant cannot produce energy.

With solar, after the ROI is met because we paid for it, the energy it's self is much, much cheaper.

They don't have to mine coal, they don't have to import it. They don't have to deal with the negative effects the activities revolving around coal have on their environment and society, same goes for all fossil fuels.

 

The energy does them no good if it's not available 24/7/365. There are no significant negative effects from fossil fuel power plants. Fossil fuels are the reason why we enjoy such a high standard of living. Why is Germany replacing their nuclear plants with coal (actually lignite) power plants and not with solar ?? With solar the ROI is never met.

 

I don't know how seriously you would take a site like this.
But this is the claim I hear that a lot.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions-intermediate.htm

I am assuming the data is true.

Natural forces produce - 772GT
The earth can absorb - 788GT
Humans produce - 29GT
19GT can't be absorbed.

We are adding 3.6% a year overall and
1.6% more than the earth can absorb.

That does add up. Co2 concentrations have been increasing around 1% a year.
Over time we add to that. There is also a feedback loop from the warming, and the CO2 goes up even more. I can understand that. But we haven't always produced that much CO2.
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If the earth was absorbing all the CO2 before humans, why does there seem to be an increase in CO2 over the last several thousand years? It's never stabilized. There has always been an increase.

Why do we start seeing fairly large gains by 1900?
We were only putting out 1.3 or 1.4 GT of C02 Even by the 1930s we were still only at 3.8GT. The planet should have been able to absorb it. Yet we see gains by the early 1900s in CO2 levels we hadn't seen for 1800 years.
http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/05/history-carbon-dioxide-emissions

 

Because the people in Germany use a lot of energy. They were dependent on it and the government is forcing them to change.

If someone gives you a solar plant you have no investment to make back. It has been paid for by someone else.

Let's take Liberia.
https://www.usaid.gov/powerafrica/liberia

The need infrastructure, they need powerlines, all kinds of crap they can't afford.
If you do gas they are going to also need pipelines.
Then they have to maintain those plants and keep them supplied with fuel. They need to pay for all of that.

1MW goes a long way in a country like that. Smaller solar plants could provide power directly to the people where they need it. Without the need for massive infrastructure projects. All they need to cover is the maintenance of the plant and local infrastructure.

Maybe a small gas plant 200mw or so would work for a city like Monrovia but it won't do anything for the people in the rural areas where most of the county lives.

 

You are forgetting that green weanies are tearing down dams because they harm fish...

 

And again a robust economy cannot be built on solar or wind power. All you can do is keep third world people in villages by providing solar power and batteries. You can't build manufacturing factories, food processing facilities, large scale transportation and shipping, distribution facilities, etc ... All of these are needed to grow an economy and increase the standard of living. And this requires electrical energy available 24/7/365. And fossil fuels provide the concentrated energy density means to this end. Fossil fuels are the building block for our standard of living as we know it today.

 

We are just inproving the quality of life for the people so they can build thier own economy.

 

And we can accelerate the rate of increase of their quality of life by providing access to fossil fueled electrical power generation stations which provide electricity 24/7/365.

 

Many of these dams are no longer feasible sources of power or have filled up with sediment. I encourage dams to be removed, many form impassable barriers to fish species that travel from the oceans to spawning beds. They also block returning juvenile fish from reaching the oceans. Every dam that is under consideration for removal has gone through a lengthy process of review. If you want to talk about a controversial dam removal, get a load of Zinke suggesting Hetch Hetchy be removed. That would return the valley to us but at a cost to the water supply of San Francisco. As an environmentalist, I understand the trade offs, so do the people who review and authorize these removals. We have one locally that is almost completely filled with sediment, its called Matilija Reservoir. It should be removed but removing it is not a simple task.

 

No we can't. If they cannot afford the upkeep on the power plants it will not provide them with a benefit. People can't afford televisions, A/C, dishwashers, etc. They can't afford to build factories now. Giving them a power plant isn't going to increase their capacity to use the power plant.

Liberia a county of 4 million people. 2% currently have power.

So you tell, me what would it cost them per year to provide 24/7/365 power?

 

First world countries instead of subsidizing solar and wind power would cover the costs of fossil fueled plants. In conjunction with private investors this would be coupled with building manufacturing facilities, etc in order to get the economies going and become economically self sufficient. That's the morality of the first world helping the third world toward a higher standard of living, longer lifespan, and actually lower birth rates.

 

I wonder which fossil fuel you intend to replace coal as a base load?

 

First the upkeep, on solar is far lower than coal. Even less when batteries are not involved.

In a county like Liberia anything more than what they have now, which is virtually nothing, is an improvement.

How much would it cost to provide 24/7/365 power to the country? This is important because you seem to think we can pay for it.

Any foreign aid is immoral. That is my opinion.

It is immoral for you, to force me, to give tax dollars toward something I do not agree with.

If I am to give my tax dollars. I am willing to agree, so long as there are limits on that aid.

Powering a county on fossil fuels will create a dependency on a finite resource. That will lead to a dependency on more foreign aid.
That is not moral.

Humans need shelter water and food. Electricity is a luxury, you can either afford that luxury or you can't. People have been living without it for 10's of thousands of years.

 

I trust the market to work it out. Fossil fuel supplies will not last forever.

We aren't talking about the United States, we can afford the baggage that comes with the coal. We have systems in place to regulate the industry. More importantly there is a existing market for the power that gives us the ability to afford the upkeep on the plants.

 

If private investment wanted to invest in power generation in Liberia they would be building the plants. Right? Its a win/win according to your theory.

The power is not going to create a market for the power. Right now people just need power for things like pumping water, charging batteries, maybe some lighting.
Giving everyone access to just a little bit of power will go a long way to improving their economy.

You are putting the car before the horse.

 

you could also dredge it. Since the last ice age SoCal has been semi arid at best. Without dams and other water retention projects you can't provide adequate water for the legal population let alone an 100k or so illegals you seem bound and determined to import every year

 

I don't know that the American west has the water security to rely on hydro power. Maybe parts of Washington or Oregon. The east might, but we ain't going to be building new dams in this county unless flood control is required.

 

Low cost fossil fuel is essential for economic development. I’m putting the welfare of the poor who live in third world countries first.

 

Solar has lower upkeep and would satify the current economic and social needs of the people needs of the people.

They can run a solar plants own thier own after the plant we have built the plant.

You can build and run 100 1mw solar plants for far less than a 200mw fossil fuel plant and the infastructure to required to run it. You would reach more people and improve more lives.

 

Again you can’t grow an economy on intermittent power with no practical storage technology.

 

That is false. You do not need 24/7 access to power to grow an economy. All you need is a little, if any at all.

http://qa.answers.com/Q/What_do_the_Amish_use_electricity_for_and_why

 

The Amish is your example of a growing economy ?? They’ve been stuck in the 18th century for decades

 

We don't have to make them rich, we don't need to do anything at all. We are offering to give them a boost.

Are they better off then the people in Liberia? Are they trading with the outside world? Is their society riddled with corruption and disease? Are their people hungry? The Amish economy is what the Amish want it to be, it satisfies their needs, not yours. From their perspective, they aren't suffering from it.

 

They are a very very small sect with an alternative life style living in the middle of the largest economy in the world.

 

Pretty sure they don't just live in the US.

Pretty sure there are other societies on the planet that are thriving on renewable energy and low power consumption.