Thread Recap
This thread has been somewhat of a journey for me. It started off in that I had been a long-time skeptic/denier, but bad science is usually debunked after a decade and the whole topic of climate change had around far too long not to give it a second look with an open mind. So I cracked open Bill Gate’s book
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster and immediately saw problems. Bill's book was not the type of book I was looking for, but it did raise new questions.
The biggest issue I had with Bill's book is it seemed reasonable to me that an energy storage solution (e.g., a battery) could be tied with wind and solar to resolve the crisis and the rest of it was noise, so I started this thread to see what others thought. From the OP it seemed ESS could get us all but about 28%.
Mainly I've been a proponent of a low-cost ESS solution (which
seems very feasible) because it would make wind and solar the lowest LCOE providers, and our natural capitalism steak could have the pro-climate people less concerned and reduce costs for everyone. That is a win-win.
But that lingering 28% was still a lot if climate change was indeed something to worry about.
Planting more trees didn't seem like the answer (
#8).
So I went looking for other books and not finding anything started doing some research and posting the findings for discussion as I had a lot of questions in terms of the validity of the science. That starts at post
#9, based on the half-life of GreenHouse Gases (GHGs), and recognizing the buildup I started changing my tune and seeing the value of net-zero. But I still had a lot of questions:
- #15 talks about Anti-Greenhouse Gases.
- #20 talks about water as a GHG.
- #26 talks about GHG frequency/temperature, see also #50 & #309 for a detailed video.
- #29 talks about how they know the temperature from millions of years ago and the scientific battle over accuracy.
- #32 talks about the accuracy of the IPCC temperature models.
- #40 is a quick synopsis.
- #41 talks about the number of scientists that agree with climate change and why those numbers are inaccurate.
- #53 is about one of the IPCC models (NASA's) and links to the source code and documentation. Those essentially confirm both the completeness for the well-known elements (e.g., greenhouse effect) and parameterization for those they can't model (e.g., clouds).
- #56 explains why most published papers are wrong. That's not to knock the IPCC findings, they're well aware of P-Values.
- #57 is the NASA image of the energy balance and why it doesn't make sense to me.
- #64 looks at Noctilucent clouds which occur ~80 km up and are not a part of the IPCC models.
- #76 brings up global warming as the result of magma swelling from the earth's core.
- #72 and #78 discuss the geological temperature changes and extinction events
- #87 is the start of a series of posts that discuss the 6th IPCC report.
- #94 looks at oxygen levels needed for fish to survive
- #122 talks about modern-day temperature measurements.
- #129 The IPCC tipping points
- #136 What big countries think and how American attitudes have been changing
- #229 Why temperatures will increase despite CO2 "saturation"
- #259 Talks about NF3
- #287 Economics of going carbon neutral and comparing it to existing fuel costs.
- #522 Review of energy storage systems including their costs and carbon footprints.
- #524 Nuclear power seems better than ESS, but expensive.
- #525 Would Reducing the population help or not.
- #541 Ocean Currents
Conclusion to Date
A cost-effective ESS isn't enough.
From the IPCC report, the greenhouse gas concentrations must be decreased and while a low-cost ESS can help to greatly reduce GHG emissions, they don't help with a number of other processes.
Fortunately, folks are working on new technologies that will help that last 28%...for example:
- Hydrogen might be a replacement option for long-haul trucks & air travel
- Green Steel
- Concrete Replacements (e.g., Mycelium, ashCrete, ferroRock, glasscrete)
- New Concrete processes (e.g., CarbonCure)
- Beano for Cows, synthetic meats (also allows more agricultural land to shift to food for humans ref)
- Small/safe cost-efficient nuclear reactors (e.g., Terrapower)
Even with those technologies, that still leaves humans making a lot of CO
2 by 2050. But, as
@Samsonite801 pointed out in
#5, there are possible solutions for that too in terms of carbon capture technology. There are also numerous plan Bs other than carbon sequestration that we have time to implement, but these are less desirable as each has associated risks and unknowns.