Thermodynamics actually makes basically everything carbon neutral other than digging shit up from the ground and burning it.
We just gotta stop digging up hydrocarbons out of the ground and burning them which releases gasses into the atmosphere which throws things out of balance.
Hydroelectric dams, Solar Panels, Wind Turbines, even nuclear power plants don’t do that. Sure solar and wind wasn’t economically viable until recently (they definitely are now though) but hydro and nuclear have been around a long time. It just burning fossil fuels was considered to be cheaper until we were aware of the true economic costs of it, which is immense.
There’s two things going on here. Carbon neutral and greenhouse gases is a major factor in global warming. But climate disruption can and will happen with almost all forms of energy production and consumption. Welcome to my TED talk. ;)
Premise #1: human caused energy consumption is always growing, and will continue to grow.
Premise #2: to handle that energy use growth, we will continue to require additional energy.
Statement: greenhouse gases are terrible and everything that follows is not in defense of oil and gas. All options are improvements over the status quo. In these scenarios, I’m assuming we’ve licked greenhouse gasses and I’m asking “now what.”
Assumption: there is a limit to the amount of energy humans can produce on the earth, without nuclear. This limit is related to the solar energy capture cross section of the earth. If we were to harvest 100% of the sunlight hitting the earth and turn it into energy, we would hit that cap. When this energy is used, it will be converted to heat. If this whole process was 100% efficient, the earth would try very quickly.
Simple version: if we cover the earth in dark panels to capture more sunlight, we change the albedo of the earth, and reflect less light back into space. In the process we heat the earth and probably destroy the climate.
Okay, let’s look at wind power as another example, taken to the maximum extreme: What would it take to harvest that energy from the movement of gases in the atmosphere. Well, you’d have to capture all that kinetic energy and turn it into electricity. In the process, you’d literally stop all natural movement of the wind, and destroy the climate.
Ugh. Okay, let’s look at nuclear energy (fission or fusion, doesn’t matter): all of the energy generated eventually gets turns into heat when it is used. It actually makes the problem worse because now we’re getting more energy dumped into the system than the sun hits us with.
Basically, any very long term solution kills the planet. And even if we don’t, the output of the sun is increasing as it ages - part of the natural lifecycle of a star. I’m not taking about the red giant end game for earth, but rather just a slow increase over time. 5% will be enough to turn Earth into Venus. Some post human civilization is going to burn to a crisp anyway, whether it’s sooner or later.
Except: we could block a small percentage of the sunlight from reaching the earth. Then as we slowly start doing things like nuclear and panels and whatever, we can keep the temperature from rising catastrophically. This block can take many forms – swarms of mirrored balloons, or mylar sheets at Sun-Earth L1, or just painting all of our streets and buildings white to control average albedo.
Basically: thermodynamics dooms us in the end regardless of the energy source unless we control the incoming sunlight. Ideally, with industrial processes (energy users – heat producers) off planet if growth sustains.
We could start this now, as a means to control greenhouse related warming, while we wean ourselves off fossil fuels. And it will still be a valid strategy after fossil fuels and carbon is under control.
All of this is running under the assumption that heat never radiates into space.
It does.
The problem is that with higher CO2 levels, less heat is radiating into space than before. It’s a greenhouse effect.
Heat from the sun that enters the atmosphere is going to cause heat regardless of whether the photons hit a solar panel, a tree, or some asphalt. Maybe by painting things white, we can reflect more heat out into space. But even that’s going to be less effective with higher CO2 levels.
I mean if heat never radiates into space, then why isn’t the earth a volcanic world as it was in the past?
Thermodynamics actually makes basically everything carbon neutral other than digging shit up from the ground and burning it.
We just gotta stop digging up hydrocarbons out of the ground and burning them which releases gasses into the atmosphere which throws things out of balance.
Hydroelectric dams, Solar Panels, Wind Turbines, even nuclear power plants don’t do that. Sure solar and wind wasn’t economically viable until recently (they definitely are now though) but hydro and nuclear have been around a long time. It just burning fossil fuels was considered to be cheaper until we were aware of the true economic costs of it, which is immense.
There’s two things going on here. Carbon neutral and greenhouse gases is a major factor in global warming. But climate disruption can and will happen with almost all forms of energy production and consumption. Welcome to my TED talk. ;)
Premise #1: human caused energy consumption is always growing, and will continue to grow.
Premise #2: to handle that energy use growth, we will continue to require additional energy.
Statement: greenhouse gases are terrible and everything that follows is not in defense of oil and gas. All options are improvements over the status quo. In these scenarios, I’m assuming we’ve licked greenhouse gasses and I’m asking “now what.”
Assumption: there is a limit to the amount of energy humans can produce on the earth, without nuclear. This limit is related to the solar energy capture cross section of the earth. If we were to harvest 100% of the sunlight hitting the earth and turn it into energy, we would hit that cap. When this energy is used, it will be converted to heat. If this whole process was 100% efficient, the earth would try very quickly.
Simple version: if we cover the earth in dark panels to capture more sunlight, we change the albedo of the earth, and reflect less light back into space. In the process we heat the earth and probably destroy the climate.
Okay, let’s look at wind power as another example, taken to the maximum extreme: What would it take to harvest that energy from the movement of gases in the atmosphere. Well, you’d have to capture all that kinetic energy and turn it into electricity. In the process, you’d literally stop all natural movement of the wind, and destroy the climate.
Ugh. Okay, let’s look at nuclear energy (fission or fusion, doesn’t matter): all of the energy generated eventually gets turns into heat when it is used. It actually makes the problem worse because now we’re getting more energy dumped into the system than the sun hits us with.
Basically, any very long term solution kills the planet. And even if we don’t, the output of the sun is increasing as it ages - part of the natural lifecycle of a star. I’m not taking about the red giant end game for earth, but rather just a slow increase over time. 5% will be enough to turn Earth into Venus. Some post human civilization is going to burn to a crisp anyway, whether it’s sooner or later.
Except: we could block a small percentage of the sunlight from reaching the earth. Then as we slowly start doing things like nuclear and panels and whatever, we can keep the temperature from rising catastrophically. This block can take many forms – swarms of mirrored balloons, or mylar sheets at Sun-Earth L1, or just painting all of our streets and buildings white to control average albedo.
Basically: thermodynamics dooms us in the end regardless of the energy source unless we control the incoming sunlight. Ideally, with industrial processes (energy users – heat producers) off planet if growth sustains.
We could start this now, as a means to control greenhouse related warming, while we wean ourselves off fossil fuels. And it will still be a valid strategy after fossil fuels and carbon is under control.
All of this is running under the assumption that heat never radiates into space.
It does.
The problem is that with higher CO2 levels, less heat is radiating into space than before. It’s a greenhouse effect.
Heat from the sun that enters the atmosphere is going to cause heat regardless of whether the photons hit a solar panel, a tree, or some asphalt. Maybe by painting things white, we can reflect more heat out into space. But even that’s going to be less effective with higher CO2 levels.
I mean if heat never radiates into space, then why isn’t the earth a volcanic world as it was in the past?