I can't help but feel that adding more pollution is just going to make the problem worse in the long term. The answer really boils down to 'stop trying to burn down nature and learn to live in...
We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky.
Morpheus, The Matrix
I can't help but feel that adding more pollution is just going to make the problem worse in the long term.
The answer really boils down to 'stop trying to burn down nature and learn to live in it.' The number of people dumping pesticides and herbicides on their lawns to this day is mindboggling.
Rebuild healthy soils by letting fallen leaves rot on the ground instead of being collected by municipality. Living soil captures a lot more carbon than sterile monoculture turf.
The problem here is that (a) no one listens and (b) we need to buy time while we transition to a lower carbon economy. We've already thrown nature out of balance so there's no living with it past...
The problem here is that (a) no one listens and (b) we need to buy time while we transition to a lower carbon economy.
We've already thrown nature out of balance so there's no living with it past a certain point- we've already meddled too much. In the 50-100 year horizon I think we have to accept that the objective needs to be in maintaining the conditions in which our massive global civilisation can remain fed. There are a billion middle class and below Indians (for example) who want the same amenities the Global North has been enjoying for the past seventy or so years. To me the key is helping cushion the blow to these economies while waiting for them to get below replacement fertility levels. Then maybe we can arrest the need for 'line go up' growth.
Ultimately yes, it means us cushy americans have to come to terms with the fact our lifestyles are not sustainable. All these resources we spend making new VR headsets should be spent on...
Ultimately yes, it means us cushy americans have to come to terms with the fact our lifestyles are not sustainable.
All these resources we spend making new VR headsets should be spent on rebuilding our lives to be more sustainable.
We need less software developers, and more farmers. This will only be more true as the large farm crop failures get with disruptive climate.
A garden in every home, a chicken in every yard would be a good start.
Parts of America may have the space and resources for that, but unfortunately a lot other countries don't, necessarily. Especially if they're going through megadroughts, floods and so forth. Here...
Parts of America may have the space and resources for that, but unfortunately a lot other countries don't, necessarily. Especially if they're going through megadroughts, floods and so forth.
Here in Singapore the goverment has even started putting quite a bit of focus on the possibility of using small offshore nuclear reactors to provide the energy we'll need. I hope it works out because we'll need large quantities of non fossil energy to get through the next century.
Oh yes, I wasn't disputing that. I was targeting my suggestions at the fellow Americans. To be honest, nuclear is the best way forward, if you can avoid the NIMBY (not in my backyard) crowd from...
Oh yes, I wasn't disputing that. I was targeting my suggestions at the fellow Americans.
To be honest, nuclear is the best way forward, if you can avoid the NIMBY (not in my backyard) crowd from blocking it, which is astronomical in America.
Nuclear has challenges. Because we have periodic energy crises (1970s, early 2000s, …) followed by periods of seeming abundance, the energy literature often looks like a stopped clock. In the...
Nuclear has challenges. Because we have periodic energy crises (1970s, early 2000s, …) followed by periods of seeming abundance, the energy literature often looks like a stopped clock.
In the 1970s there was a lot of literature comparing nuclear to coal, which was the cheapest power source at the time. In the 1980s there was a boom in gas turbines fired by natural gas which are quite similar to jet engines. A gas turbine is a fraction of the size and cost of the steam turbines used by most coal and nuclear power plants. One reason coal and nuclear fell out of favor at the same time in North America was the arrival of cheap natural gas and cheap power plants that use it.
If you look at a light water reactor so much of the expense is the steam turbine and heat exchangers: the “steam generators” in a PWR are larger than the actual reactor vessel by quite a bit.
Generation 4 nuclear reactors run at higher temperatures and could drive a combined cycle gas turbine using a supercritical CO2 or helium cycle. A supercritical CO2 turbine for a LMFBR (liquid metal fast breeder reactor) could fit in the employee break room of the turbine house for an LWR. Back in the age of Superphenix people assumed a breeder would be more expensive than an LWR but that could turn around if we had the right powerset.
Now this technology is not a bird in the hand, at higher temperatures you have worse problems with corrosion and creep. But in the long term the cost of the LWR is not attractive even if we could eliminate the gremlins we encounter when we try to build them.
As for that the next generation coming online will be small LWRs with the heat exchangers integrated in the reactor vessel. On the large side the whole thing (vessel + heat exchangers) could be stamped out on the same massive press used to make just the vessel, but it will have a lower power rating than a conventional LWR. Other designs like NuScale could be built with smaller presses you can find in North America. GE’s BWRX300 is a modular boiling water reactor that looks promising and can be built in Canada.
China is about to complete the ACP100 in a few years
other modular LWRs will probably follow in the next decade. Although there is a renewed commitment to develop Gen 4 reactors like the LMFBR, HTGR (High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor), MSR (Molten Salt Reactor) these are still decades out from major commercialization.
I can't help but feel that adding more pollution is just going to make the problem worse in the long term.
The answer really boils down to 'stop trying to burn down nature and learn to live in it.' The number of people dumping pesticides and herbicides on their lawns to this day is mindboggling.
Rebuild healthy soils by letting fallen leaves rot on the ground instead of being collected by municipality. Living soil captures a lot more carbon than sterile monoculture turf.
The problem here is that (a) no one listens and (b) we need to buy time while we transition to a lower carbon economy.
We've already thrown nature out of balance so there's no living with it past a certain point- we've already meddled too much. In the 50-100 year horizon I think we have to accept that the objective needs to be in maintaining the conditions in which our massive global civilisation can remain fed. There are a billion middle class and below Indians (for example) who want the same amenities the Global North has been enjoying for the past seventy or so years. To me the key is helping cushion the blow to these economies while waiting for them to get below replacement fertility levels. Then maybe we can arrest the need for 'line go up' growth.
Ultimately yes, it means us cushy americans have to come to terms with the fact our lifestyles are not sustainable.
All these resources we spend making new VR headsets should be spent on rebuilding our lives to be more sustainable.
We need less software developers, and more farmers. This will only be more true as the large farm crop failures get with disruptive climate.
A garden in every home, a chicken in every yard would be a good start.
Parts of America may have the space and resources for that, but unfortunately a lot other countries don't, necessarily. Especially if they're going through megadroughts, floods and so forth.
Here in Singapore the goverment has even started putting quite a bit of focus on the possibility of using small offshore nuclear reactors to provide the energy we'll need. I hope it works out because we'll need large quantities of non fossil energy to get through the next century.
Oh yes, I wasn't disputing that. I was targeting my suggestions at the fellow Americans.
To be honest, nuclear is the best way forward, if you can avoid the NIMBY (not in my backyard) crowd from blocking it, which is astronomical in America.
Nuclear has challenges. Because we have periodic energy crises (1970s, early 2000s, …) followed by periods of seeming abundance, the energy literature often looks like a stopped clock.
In the 1970s there was a lot of literature comparing nuclear to coal, which was the cheapest power source at the time. In the 1980s there was a boom in gas turbines fired by natural gas which are quite similar to jet engines. A gas turbine is a fraction of the size and cost of the steam turbines used by most coal and nuclear power plants. One reason coal and nuclear fell out of favor at the same time in North America was the arrival of cheap natural gas and cheap power plants that use it.
If you look at a light water reactor so much of the expense is the steam turbine and heat exchangers: the “steam generators” in a PWR are larger than the actual reactor vessel by quite a bit.
Generation 4 nuclear reactors run at higher temperatures and could drive a combined cycle gas turbine using a supercritical CO2 or helium cycle. A supercritical CO2 turbine for a LMFBR (liquid metal fast breeder reactor) could fit in the employee break room of the turbine house for an LWR. Back in the age of Superphenix people assumed a breeder would be more expensive than an LWR but that could turn around if we had the right powerset.
Now this technology is not a bird in the hand, at higher temperatures you have worse problems with corrosion and creep. But in the long term the cost of the LWR is not attractive even if we could eliminate the gremlins we encounter when we try to build them.
As for that the next generation coming online will be small LWRs with the heat exchangers integrated in the reactor vessel. On the large side the whole thing (vessel + heat exchangers) could be stamped out on the same massive press used to make just the vessel, but it will have a lower power rating than a conventional LWR. Other designs like NuScale could be built with smaller presses you can find in North America. GE’s BWRX300 is a modular boiling water reactor that looks promising and can be built in Canada.
China is about to complete the ACP100 in a few years
https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chinese-SMR-project-enters-installation-phase
other modular LWRs will probably follow in the next decade. Although there is a renewed commitment to develop Gen 4 reactors like the LMFBR, HTGR (High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor), MSR (Molten Salt Reactor) these are still decades out from major commercialization.