If this survey is real the messages these young people are receiving are completely wrong.
We need to reduce our impact on our planet but CO2 is a complete red herring. The current ECS (temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere) is centred around 3°C (IPCC AR6). The 2°C will destroy civilisation is simply made up.
Some interesting points throughout this thread. As it is now around 100 posts and 500 views I wonder if it will be locked like the last one.
We certainly have a climate/environmental problem. Do we have an emergency?
A significant part of the solution will be engineering, there will also have to be societal changes.
How do we decide what to do? In an engineering sense there would have to be a problem description, a timescale, some form of benefit analysis and some form of resource requirements. This would have to be of the complete system lifecycle.
To date we have not done very well. Wind and solar PV are installed parasitically, requiring subsidies and the existing electricity distribution network to stabilise and back them up. Drax would probably be responsible for less overall pollution if it went back to burning coal rather than shipping wood chip from America.
Most western governments are just fudging the numbers to make themselves feel good rather than making a positive contribution. Let’s move all our energy intensive and polluting industries to places like China and then complain about China’s pollution. Let’s ignore the environmental impact of shipping. Net Zero is another fudge.
I do actually agree with Ms Thunberg’s Blah Blah Blah speech. I also see FLOP26 as a party for the not so good and not so great which will be lots of virtue signalling and demands for government (taxpayers) money. I can’t see any positive planning coming from it. Does it even make sense to hold it with the current Covid situation?
So what can we do? I tend to agree with Mike that to add some base load nuclear and reinforce the distribution network would be a good start. The newer generations npps have much better load following characteristics than the old plutonium factories. Wind power has a place but the overall energy return needs to be checked. Some more pumped storage/hydro would be good but is somewhat limited in the UK. I doubt that solar PV has any energy payback in northern England and is dubious in the south. Most of the easy home insulation has been done. You rapidly reach a point of diminishing and then zero return.
Trying to do lifecycle benefit analysis is difficult. Is it better to let the old stuff run out it’s useful life and then replace it? Should we scrap things that are still usable and use more resources to replace them with something ‘better’ (what is better??)? If we rush ahead and do everything now (what the activists want) how long will it take to offset the emissions produced by making steel, concrete, copper, batteries etc? Will there ever be a payback?
Some interesting points throughout this thread. As it is now around 100 posts and 500 views I wonder if it will be locked like the last one.
We certainly have a climate/environmental problem. Do we have an emergency?
A significant part of the solution will be engineering, there will also have to be societal changes.
How do we decide what to do? In an engineering sense there would have to be a problem description, a timescale, some form of benefit analysis and some form of resource requirements. This would have to be of the complete system lifecycle.
To date we have not done very well. Wind and solar PV are installed parasitically, requiring subsidies and the existing electricity distribution network to stabilise and back them up. Drax would probably be responsible for less overall pollution if it went back to burning coal rather than shipping wood chip from America.
Most western governments are just fudging the numbers to make themselves feel good rather than making a positive contribution. Let’s move all our energy intensive and polluting industries to places like China and then complain about China’s pollution. Let’s ignore the environmental impact of shipping. Net Zero is another fudge.
I do actually agree with Ms Thunberg’s Blah Blah Blah speech. I also see FLOP26 as a party for the not so good and not so great which will be lots of virtue signalling and demands for government (taxpayers) money. I can’t see any positive planning coming from it. Does it even make sense to hold it with the current Covid situation?
So what can we do? I tend to agree with Mike that to add some base load nuclear and reinforce the distribution network would be a good start. The newer generations npps have much better load following characteristics than the old plutonium factories. Wind power has a place but the overall energy return needs to be checked. Some more pumped storage/hydro would be good but is somewhat limited in the UK. I doubt that solar PV has any energy payback in northern England and is dubious in the south. Most of the easy home insulation has been done. You rapidly reach a point of diminishing and then zero return.
Trying to do lifecycle benefit analysis is difficult. Is it better to let the old stuff run out it’s useful life and then replace it? Should we scrap things that are still usable and use more resources to replace them with something ‘better’ (what is better??)? If we rush ahead and do everything now (what the activists want) how long will it take to offset the emissions produced by making steel, concrete, copper, batteries etc? Will there ever be a payback?
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