Why we need "Net zero"

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

buying a betamax player in 2001.

I bought a second hand one in 1984, it was good.

The video rental shop owner had a Betamax, so loads of choice.

[Marvin]

2 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

Personally I think we need much more gas storage and more gas plants as backup for the times when renewables are low.

Absolutely, and purchasing of gas when supplies are cheaper...

[Beelbeebub]

45 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I bought a second hand one in 1984, it was good.

The video rental shop owner had a Betamax, so loads of choice.

They were great, and in 1984 it wasn't an unreasonable decision. 

 

But by 2001 it was clearly a technogy with no future. 

 

Much like gas boilers. Thry are fantastic. A small box on the wall that will provide heating and hot water on demand for an entire house with almost no effort on the occupants part. Brilliant. 

 

But their time is coming to a close and in 2035 even more so. 

 

I remember when incandescent light bulbs were phased out and lots of people moaned about it.  

 

Anyone moaning now? I can light an entire house of about what it cost to run a single light bulb and the (decent) ones last years. 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

more gas storage

I just done a quick search to see how much gas storage, as a service, costs, seems to be about £0.00167/kWh ($0.64/MCF), so quite expensive.

May have got the conversions wrong and the original data may be wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_storage

If it is even a factor of 10 out, it is still expensive, possibly why we don't store that much.

Edited 5 hours ago by SteamyTea

[Beelbeebub]

13 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I just done a quick search to see how much gas storage, as a service, costs, seems to be about £0.00167/kWh ($0.64/MCF), so quite expensive.

May have got the conversions wrong and the original data may be wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_storage

If it is even a factor of 10 out, it is still expensive, possibly why we don't store that much.

I think it is, though not as expensive as the country going dark! 😁 

 

I wonder how much gas storage is on board a LNG tanker. Could the UK Gov just buy and operate a bunch and use those as a dual use transport /buffer

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

gas storage is on board a LNG tanker

https://www.oftrb.com/archives/39898

 

• Small-scale LNG Carriers: Around 3,500 to 20,000 cubic meters.
• Medium-sized LNG Carriers: Approximately 20,000 to 90,000 cubic meters.
• Large LNG Carriers (Q-Max and Q-Flex classes): Between 210,000 and 266,000 cubic meters.

[Spinny]

Europe stores gas of course, gets them through every winter.

 

The Rough facility is off the coast of East Yorkshire, and accounts for about half of the capacity the UK has to store gas. It was closed in 2017, but then partly reopened in October 2022 following the energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

 

Even the US has a strategic oil reserve.

 

And you can follow summary of the gyrations and commentary on natural gas supply and demand here...

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/natural-gas

Edited 5 hours ago by Spinny

[Spinny]

9 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

gas storage is on board a LNG tanker

A juicy target in a hot war, especially if in port.

[Beelbeebub]

42 minutes ago, Spinny said:

A juicy target in a hot war, especially if in port.

Very much so.

 

Which is worse

 

A) losing storage site/vessel that provides a fuel for a small proportion of your demand and is mainly a backup reserve. 

 

B) losing storage site/vessel that provides a fuel you were relying on burning next week. 

 

Again, pick one. (you haven't picked which choice from the last time...) 

 

(for context the uk currently gets 25% of all it's gas via LNG) 

Edited 4 hours ago by Beelbeebub

[Spinny]

10 hours ago, Mike said:

Clearly not an expert in climate science then.

'Appeal to authority' as an argument is fallacious anyway. The truth is not determined by any 'authority' no matter his position or the number of letters after his name. Neither is it determined by popular vote, nor by the vote of those paid to promote narratives regardless of objective truths. Nature is as she is.

 

As Rutherford said 'All science is either physics or stamp collecting'. I'd argue physicists generally have the most objective and questioning perspectives. They grow up with the motivation to find truths - nobody can really work as a physicist without both a capable mind and a passionate curiosity for truth. Climate science is more of a job - barely existed 40 years ago - now massively expanded as a result of climate alarm - turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

 

We miss him still...

https://youtu.be/OL6-x0modwY?si=vYOWFRolyMaOzxvQ

[Spinny]

On the 'pick one' stuff, I am generally against false binary decision making. The best decisions under uncertainty are often to hedge your 'bets' and recognise the role and pros cons of alternatives - some of each please.

[Roger440]

16 hours ago, Mike said:

Science is a process. Over time, through repeated experimentation, testing, review and criticism it develops explanations of reality, often based in mathematics, that best fit the currently available evidence. If new evidence is gathered and/or better explanations are developed, then the consensus best explanation of reality eventually changes.

 

Opinions are subjective personal judgements. Individual scientists may hold them, but that doesn't turn opinions into science, nor science into opinions.

 

 

Ok, fair enough, used the wrong descriptors, but essentially the key point is science is not "fixed", and thus not "fact" as some like to suggest. What a significant portion of the scientific community believe today, may very well be quite different in 20 years time. 

[Beelbeebub]

9 minutes ago, Spinny said:

On the 'pick one' stuff, I am generally against false binary decision making. The best decisions under uncertainty are often to hedge your 'bets' and recognise the role and pros cons of alternatives - some of each please.

Reality is analogue rather than binary. 

 

But my point remains, much of the policy that comes under the umbrella of "Net zero" 

 

Insulating homes 

Increacing heat pump installs 

Electrification of road transport

 

Could easily be rebranded "Zero dependance" or "Net Zero Imports" or something else a highly paid marketing team can come up with. 

 

Yet there are some politicians and many of their followers who are campaigning vigorously against "Net zero" but also talking of needing to increace energy security - by drilling more. 

 

Own up. Were you aware of the state of UK fossil fuels production and *more importantly* that is was down to the geology rather than policy. 

 

The impression given by certain politicans is that we could become a net exporter again, if only we weren't held back by policy. 

 

[sgt_woulds]

24 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

 

 What a significant portion of the scientific community believe today, may very well be quite different in 20 years time. 

 

 

Exactly right.  If the evidence proves otherwise scientific opinion changes.  That is why science is a better touchstone for forming policy than personal opinion.

 

The point is that a significant amount of the evidence and thus (as you say yourself), a significant portion of the scientific community believe in human amplified climate change.

 

 

When seat belts first came in, Volvo et al had already published significant amounts of evidence to prove their efficacy.  The greatest driver of the day, Stirling Moss had his own opinion on the matter and thought it was better to be thrown from a vehicle and had the seat belt achchors on his car (Marcos at the time IIRC) sawn through.  When the inevitable happned he was thrown clear but suffered injuries that he would not have if he'd stayed in the vehicle.  It was a miracle that he wasn't killed.

 

In a situation where all the evidence tells you our Fossil Fuel addiction will lead to disaster, do you just hope to be thrown clear?

[Spinny]

57 minutes ago, sgt_woulds said:

In a situation where all the evidence tells you our Fossil Fuel addiction will lead to disaster

But that is not the situation.

It has been 20 years since Al Gore released 'An Inconvenient Truth' and the first COP meeting was in 1995 over 30 years ago. The end is nigh they cried but all the portents of doom have not actually occurred. And we definitely have people being paid to try to keep a failing narrative going, and people in school taught that opinon is fact, and organisations like the Met Office and the BBC obviously lying, censoring, and misrepresenting climate concerns.

 

 

How do you know when a politician is lying to you - their lips are moving.

 

 

[Beelbeebub]

19 minutes ago, Spinny said:

organisations like the Met Office

The Met Office lying? 

 

I mean I know weather forecasts aren't always accurate but how do you get the idea thr Met Office is lying. 

 

Are you going to say that they are literally making up the measurements? 

 

'cos this measurements show the climate is changing. 

 

 

[Spinny]

1 hour ago, Beelbeebub said:

Own up.

Yes I think we are all aware the days of UK peak oil & gas are over. That is not a reason to abandon what remains, and you never know when new reserves are going to be found.

 

I am quite happy with mixed and diverse sources for UK energy. Let the people, and the market try them all and use them as and when they suit. They all have pros and cons. I don't think hacking down rainforest for balsa wood to make wind turbine blades is a great idea, nor chopping up sea birds and birds of prey, nor child labour digging for cobalt and lithium, nor covering prime farm land with solar farms. It is far from as simple as the virtue crusaders think.

 

On energy security and national security I am old enough to remember when we had a proper focus on energy security and national security infrastructure - bourne out of the experience of 2 great wars. It was all abandoned when the Berlin wall came down. We are in our 4th decade of treasonous politicians of all hues doing their best to destroy our nation and it's security. We can barely even make any steel any more, have willingly prostituted ourselves to the totalitarianism of China, sold 50 Billion of gold at one twentieth of today's value, wasted vast sums on covid nonsense, have hacked the armed forces back to embarassing levels - there is an endless list.

[-rick-]

30 minutes ago, Spinny said:

But that is not the situation.

It has been 20 years since Al Gore released 'An Inconvenient Truth' and the first COP meeting was in 1995 over 30 years ago.

 

Exxon scientists reported on climate change effects in the 70s. There are press reports on the impact on carbon on the climate from the 1920s maybe even earlier.

 

30 minutes ago, Spinny said:

The end is nigh they cried but all the portents of doom have not actually occurred.

 

A frog in slowly warming water doesn't notice the difference and gets cooked.

 

Plenty of bad things have been happening. Once in 100 year events now happen much more frequently. Insurance companies are taking hit after hit pushing up insurance costs massively and causing them to refuse to insure many properties without government backstops (more in other countries than here, it's a global phenomenon). Biodiversity is crashing and we've lost vast quantities of species to extinction (though admittedly only some of that is due to climate, but many are directly linked to it). Crop failures, droughts, more hurricanes, heat waves, floods, all have increased. All have been predicted in the 1990s as results of climate change.

 

Some of the tabloid headlines of the past were overcooked, but equally many more recent headlines undersell the risks we face at this point. (potential AMOC collapse as an example)

 

30 minutes ago, Spinny said:

And we definitely have people being paid to try to keep a failing narrative going

 

There are lobbyists around for every subject under the sun. The amount of money spend on lobbying by the 'climate skeptic' side outweighs lobbying from green groups by orders of magnitude. In any case, we shouldn't be paying attention to lobbyists, we should be looking at the last 50 years of scientific research, which has consistently backed CO2 emissions as the cause of the warming climate.

 

30 minutes ago, Spinny said:

, and people in school taught that opinon is fact,

 

I'd argue that widespread scientific consensus is more than mere opinion. Is it 100% fact? No, but it's not just an opinion. It's rigorous data backed analysis which has been picked apart by every interested party. It's the closest science can ever come to fact.

 

30 minutes ago, Spinny said:

and organisations like the Met Office and the BBC obviously lying, censoring, and misrepresenting climate concerns.

 

Such as?

Edited 10 minutes ago by -rick-

[-rick-]

4 minutes ago, Spinny said:

Yes I think we are all aware the days of UK peak oil & gas are over. That is not a reason to abandon what remains, and you never know when new reserves are going to be found.

 

@Beelbeebub wasn't saying we should abandon it. He was saying it's a precious resource we should save for things where we don't have an alternative. Many of our uses of fossil fuels can be replaced with other sources of energy. Some things are much more difficult, eg, chemicals and plastics.