Quote :

"are you kidding? They're building coal power plants now at a faster rate than ever in their history. To the point that their construction of power plants is now outpacing their economy and they're considering selling their excess coal-fired electrical energy to Europe via long transmission lines, i.e. highly inefficiency."

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/5/15/15634538/china-coal-cleaner

6/7/2017 9:52:49 AM

I'm sure a leftist tabloid like VOX can offer some unbiased, objective insights on a 100% partisan issue.

Oh wait

6/7/2017 10:16:32 AM

plz to provide an unbiased source then.

[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 12:13 PM. Reason : I'll wait.]

6/7/2017 12:13:29 PM

^^as much as it pains me to say it (lol ) don't always just attack the source as your rebuttal. legitimate information does sometimes pass through biased media sources. However, it is amusing how that article points out that China's coal consumption has decided in the last 2 years. That's attributed to their economic performance though.

^And why should any of us be the least bit surprised? Obama wanted to shut down existing coal plants, not upgrade them. In light of that administration's stance, why would any utility company spend money to update their plants?

(of course, if I'm wrong about that line of reasoning feel free to point it out).

[Edited on June 7, 2017 at 12:30 PM. Reason : ]

6/7/2017 12:26:10 PM

Quote :

"Obama wanted to shut down existing coal plants, not upgrade them."

source?

6/7/2017 12:40:14 PM

Quote :

"don't always just attack the source as your rebuttal"

Then stop posting links to propaganda and pretending it is "news".

6/7/2017 2:08:17 PM

so post some real news then

6/7/2017 3:19:11 PM

The main available upgrades to coal plants reduce other emissions, like sulfur, heavy metals, particulates, etc.

The main improvements that reduce carbon emissions are purely efficiency improvements, higher temperatures, higher pressures.

There's a pretty hard floor to how much you can reduce carbon-intensity of coal by. Carbon capture and storage is an epically bad idea, on par with Hydrogen fuel cells and fusion power. Combined with the crazy long life of coal plants, it's clear why people see now choice but to get away from coal in order to get emissions down below a certain level... or at least to stop building new ones. But natural gas allows for more options in some nations than in others.

6/7/2017 8:19:47 PM

JCE WILL NOT POST REAL NEWS.

WHY???

6/7/2017 9:22:46 PM

^ THAT'S FAKE NEWS

JCE HAS ALWAYS BEEN YUGE ON THE TRUTH
NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH BETTER THAN HIM
IT'S GONNA BE SO GREAT
HE IS MAKING NEWS GREAT AGAIN

6/8/2017 2:36:18 AM

^^^Why do you consider hydrogen fuel cells and fusion power epic baddies? I thought those were the goals for clean power consumption.

6/8/2017 7:16:21 AM

JCE only gets news from the most trusted source in America: the dog in his neighbors backyard

6/8/2017 7:46:14 AM

6/8/2017 8:03:57 AM

Anyone have the clip from summer of sam where the dog is talking to berkowitz?

6/8/2017 9:16:46 AM

Quote :

"^^^Why do you consider hydrogen fuel cells and fusion power epic baddies? I thought those were the goals for clean power consumption."

Because results matter. I'll grant that engineering principles matter - some historically anemic tech merits consideration because of new previously-unknown scientific avenues. But some stuff just gets political backing on auto-pilot. Not fuel cells for transportation, because that idea is pretty much dead anyway. On the other hand, Iter is powered entirely by political inertia and basically no expert believes it'll make a difference in less than 50 years. Some alternative fusion approaches could yield fruit, but that's not what we're funding, and don't hold your breath.

Even comparatively easier fission technology can't manage to hold its footing in the developed world, in spite of the carbon dividend it yields. Several promising next-gen fission ideas would address almost all of the concerns that people have about nuclear, and there is actual historical operating experience to back them up. The basics of economic scaling are extremely similar for fusion plans vs. fission plants. Fusion plants will likely require even greater scale, and this is the very thing strangling nuclear right now. I love to read fantasy, but I don't want to make policy with it.

6/11/2017 9:44:23 PM

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/338804-weather-society-to-perry-carbon-dioxide-is-primary-cause

I find it interesting that reduction in CO2 is probably going to happen based on the populations education and not the views of those in power. The ignorance of the assigned cabinet leaders doesn't mean that states, market demand, and the general population wont naturally convert to lower CO2 emissions.

The government can speed it up with incentives, but its not required.

6/23/2017 8:37:10 AM

^The pace that it will slow down will be far too late to prevent catastrophic warming.

Hell, people on this board who call themselves liberals still buy single use plastic. People can't even make easy reductions on their own, so there is no way they will make actual sacrifices. I have a fantasy that a Scandanavian eco empire could start invading the world and enforcing their government through puppets. Taking after them is the only way.

[Edited on June 23, 2017 at 3:56 PM. Reason : do what the best countries do]

6/23/2017 3:54:02 PM

Quote :

"Hell, people on this board who call themselves liberals still buy single use plastic. People can't even make easy reductions on their own, so there is no way they will make actual sacrifices. "

Very good point.

6/23/2017 4:25:52 PM

AOC's chief of staff

https://twitter.com/saikatc/status/1065006171696873473

Quote :

"If you are presenting 20 year proposals to get us to 50% carbon emissions, you are a climate change denier."

11/21/2018 12:43:51 AM

It's funny to see him tweet that and follow up that tweet about half of Americans making less than $18/hr. Conventional power plants are good employers compared to people installing and maintaining solar farms.

11/21/2018 11:32:09 AM

Great point, capitalism incentivizes making money even at the expense of making our planet unlivable.

11/21/2018 11:40:27 AM

Capitalism rewards engineers and operations personnel with skillsets beyond operating a lawnmower and a squeegee.

11/21/2018 12:51:42 PM

only for fields found to be profitable.

11/21/2018 1:23:09 PM

lolol, people in my city have been going to work dressed like Bane for the past two weeks because my local power company probably caused the most destructive wildfire in my state's history, causing around 80 deaths and possibly up to 800 more in addition to giving some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country lung cancer from toxic smoke. Oh, and they'll probably hike up their rates to cover any liability expenses they have to pay in order to keep paying those $18/hr jobs that haven't been automated yet.

Have fun when the next Hurricane dumps half of the Atlantic Ocean into your living room; I'll be out here watching the sun be blotted out of the sky.

11/21/2018 3:02:56 PM

was your local power company the reason that they can't put the fire out? Fires start all the time in other states without uncontrollably burning for weeks on end.

11/21/2018 3:58:43 PM

holy dumb batman

11/21/2018 4:06:59 PM

actually, no. they couldn't put out the fire because i forgot to rake my landlord's lawn.

11/21/2018 4:09:55 PM

^^forestry management is dumb now?

11/22/2018 12:38:01 PM

Cool strawman.

11/22/2018 4:14:08 PM

My favorite plan: roughly revenue neutral. Eliminate the payroll tax (SS, medicaid, medicare, etc) replace it with an across the board carbon tax of roughly equal revenues. We'd be replacing a regressive tax with an even more regressive tax, but just in case it matters, we would also be reducing CO2 emissions. Anyone object to this plan?

11/22/2018 10:14:05 PM

Go fuck yourself lmao

Instead of reigning in the excesses of the wealthy, you advocate for allowing poor people to die.

Seriously you’re a sociopath

11/22/2018 10:39:45 PM

The effect on the poor would be marginal. Taxing them more in one way and less in another. But, I mean, this would only make them slightly poorer than they already are. After-all, making someone that is already poor slightly poorer doesn't outright kill them. They just have to find slightly cheaper housing, slightly cheaper food, etc. etc. Such just statistically increases their likelihood of death from illness or adverse circumstances. Nothing compared to the damage of making it illegal to employ them that the minimum wage does. The minimum wage, of course, just like our minimum housing laws (zoning) render them homeless to die on the street.

So yea, I'm also in favor of doing away with all the anti-poor laws we have on the books. I don't see what "reigning in the excesses of the wealthy" would accomplish. You can punish Peter all you want, execute him even, it isn't going to help Paul feed his family.

11/23/2018 8:11:12 AM

A better plan would be a refundable carbon tax. Tax carbon sources (oil, ng, coal, etc) as they are sold. Then, divide the revenue by the population and give it back as an income tax credit. This would incentivize companies to find and create non-carbon-based energy sources, while not dampening economic demand.

11/24/2018 10:38:58 AM

or we can just nationalize that shit and stop expecting profit-driven corporations to act in the best interests of anyone other than their shareholders. There's zero reason, either moral or economic, that justifies the obscene private profits earned off of the deliberate destruction of the environment that sustains all life on the planet.


By the way, this came out yesterday:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-climate-assessments-most-shocking-climate-change-warnings/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/climate/us-climate-report.html


Turns out that killing off vast amounts of the world's labor pool might actually be damaging to the surplus profit that can be extracted from the working poor.

11/24/2018 7:16:43 PM

Destruction of which environment? Capitalist countries tend to have the cleanest environments and passably managed wild spaces. It was the Soviet Union which managed to somehow expel more air-pollution per GDP than any other nation on the planet at the time. Especially the capitalist nations of Sweden and Norway etc. etc.

The reason is rather simple. Predominantly socialist economies tend to be poorly run. This means the vast majority of the political push tends to be just keeping the economy running at all. Environmental protection is universally an after-thought. For example, the people of Venezuela are not all that upset that environmental conditions have been getting worse in their country because they're more upset about inflation and food scarcity.

[Edited on November 24, 2018 at 8:27 PM. Reason : .,.]

11/24/2018 8:23:29 PM

Quote :

"lolol, people in my city have been going to work dressed like Bane for the past two weeks because my local power company probably caused the most destructive wildfire in my state's history, causing around 80 deaths and possibly up to 800 more in addition to giving some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country lung cancer from toxic smoke."

Pretty horrible turn of events. That being said, pretty pointless to post in this thread as it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

And we're doing just fine with hurricanes over here. Zero trend data to indicate an increased frequency of stronger and more destructive storms.

11/26/2018 9:57:44 AM

[false]

11/27/2018 8:06:04 AM

Good luck proving otherwise buddy

11/27/2018 10:06:05 AM

glad to see that you’re still denying climate change to own the libs

11/27/2018 10:55:30 AM

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1067564690186911744?s=21

Lol.

[Edited on November 27, 2018 at 7:20 PM. Reason : Is owning libs really worth this?]

11/27/2018 7:19:44 PM

^not sure what point you're trying to make from that twitter quote.

^^has nothing to do with that. Reality is reality. You want to argue for AGW that's fine, but the hurricane and wild fire arguments are incredibly weak and lacking evidence.

[Edited on November 28, 2018 at 10:28 AM. Reason : ]

11/28/2018 10:27:32 AM

lol

11/28/2018 12:27:55 PM

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/carbon-engineering-liquid-fuel-carbon-capture-neutral-science/

I don't see any dipshit socialists coming up with stuff like this.

If only the American capitalists and financiers, and their political advocates, would take the idea and run with it. You know, stop whining about the economic costs of dealing with climate change, and instead, fix the problem while making a fuckton of money doing it. Hell, even the sisterbanging Trumpers could stop pissing and moaning about the loss of American business and get behind a new, titan American indus...yeah, never mind. They're not gonna do that.

Of course, if smart rich people saved the fucking world...again...by doing smart rich people things, the left would just throw a bitch fit that they got rich while fixing one of the left's most pressing concerns.





*yes, I know it's a Canadian company. That really isn't germane to my greater points.

[Edited on December 10, 2018 at 9:19 AM. Reason : ]

12/10/2018 9:18:11 AM

Yea gotta give props to rich people partially solving the problems they caused
https://www.gq.com/story/billionaires-climate-change

And I haven't read that Nat Geo article, but they were talking about this on NPR this morning and two things stood out
1) this is only carbon neutral. Takes carbon out but just makes it right back into gasoline
2) the costs are 20% higher than fossil fuel (this is the low end, critics doubted it was that cheap)

These 2 things mean it would require subsidies (SOCIALISM!!!) and/or legislation to be viable. It also is still only a bandaid without massive cut backs in industrial emissions.

12/10/2018 9:54:38 AM

"socialism" is the reason solar panel companies are exploding (in a good way) all over the nation and Texas is transforming into a giant windmill farm. We don't need new technology, we need political will.

[Edited on December 10, 2018 at 9:58 AM. Reason : .]

12/10/2018 9:57:05 AM

^^Thanks to dipshit capitalism technology like that will never be able to compete against established interests

[Edited on December 10, 2018 at 9:58 AM. Reason : .]

12/10/2018 9:57:46 AM

-In order to scale this up, guy is going to be relying on a renewable energy grid (if he wants to maintain his “carbonless” tag). In Canada, that’s state owned utilities that will need to make the change to mostly renewable.

-how much of this guys research for the last 25 years has been government funded?

-the article explicitly says his business model relies on a carbon tax to be competitive with fossil fuels.

Government definitely has a role here.

That being said, I hope this takes off, because it absolutely could play a role in saving the world.

12/10/2018 9:58:09 AM

Quote :

"If only the American capitalists and financiers, and their political advocates, would take the idea and run with it."

hahaha why would they do that? there's sooooo much more oil in the ground.

Quote :

"Of course, if smart rich people saved the fucking world...again"

lol jesus christ

12/10/2018 11:07:30 AM

^^Canada's electric grid is already predominently renewable energy, with 60% hydro. They're still building large new hydro projects too.

12/10/2018 11:14:54 AM

https://www.nrdc.org/trump-lies

12/18/2018 1:25:31 PM