IPCC climate report

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#2190147 3-Mar-2019 09:59

gzt:
MileHighKiwi: Would love to hear some statistical evidence to counter my suspicision that we're pissing into the wind while countries like India and China triple their energy demands and build hundreds of coal plants.

Nice graph, but please explain how it answers any of MileHighKiwi's concerns?
From what I could tell he was asking what difference NZ could make in the face of the energy needs of China and India, and their use of coal to achieve it.

A better answer would be that we can only virtue signal and hope that that is sufficient to influence the major players.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

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Rikkitic

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#2190153 3-Mar-2019 10:24

From Bloomberg China Plays Both Sides

What becomes clear is that China is central to decarbonizing the world's power generation, both in terms of slowing its fossil-fuel use and the continued growth of its low or zero-carbon sources

Source: BP, Bloomberg Opinion analysis

Note: Average annual change in power generation by source and region. RoW: Rest of world. Excludes "other" sources.

On that front, while China’s coal-burn leaped up last year, this was partly due to short-term pricing effects and unusually weak hydropower generation. The broader trend has been for coal to take less and less of incremental power demand, especially compared to the supercycle period before 2008, as those three and five-year averages show.

More importantly, policy objectives to reduce smog and overcapacity plus falling prices for renewable sources have led to hundreds of gigawatts of proposed coal-fired capacity to be canceled or delayed over the past five years. That doesn’t undermine coal’s prospects completely; China may yet commission another 120 gigawatts of capacity over the next three years, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Nevertheless, slowing the creation of coal-burning capacity should mean that the balance of power continues to shift broadly away from the most carbon-intensive sources of power toward renewables in China (and India has good reasons to emulate this.) Already in retreat elsewhere, coal is beginning to taste defeat at the margin in these two key battlegrounds.

A better answer is that the facts cited as a basis for the argument are presented in a way that supports the argument but does not truthfully reflect the bigger picture. It is simply being used as a weak excuse to shore up the increasingly flimsy case for doing nothing.

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frankv

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#2190608 4-Mar-2019 11:10

Dingbatt:
gzt:
MileHighKiwi: Would love to hear some statistical evidence to counter my suspicision that we're pissing into the wind while countries like India and China triple their energy demands and build hundreds of coal plants.

Nice graph, but please explain how it answers any of MileHighKiwi's concerns?
From what I could tell he was asking what difference NZ could make in the face of the energy needs of China and India, and their use of coal to achieve it.

A better answer would be that we can only virtue signal and hope that that is sufficient to influence the major players.

Hmmm... seemed self-evident to me. When the price of solar drops below the price of coal, China and India will switch from coal to solar. We don't need to do anything about China or India... they will take care of themselves.

However:

1. The graph is perhaps misleading in that it lumps coal and gas together. Could it be that coal is cheaper than gas.

2. As the demand for coal reduces in the face of people switching to solar, so the price of coal will reduce, and the top of the "Coal / Natural Gas Cost Band" will lower.

tdgeek

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#2190617 4-Mar-2019 11:22

I dont but the NZ is too small to make a difference argument at all. Its a people issue. When its a Kiwi or American or Lithuanian makes no difference. Houston or Shanghai can easily say, we are too small to make a difference

Dingbatt

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#2190675 4-Mar-2019 13:31

frankv:
Dingbatt:
gzt:
MileHighKiwi: Would love to hear some statistical evidence to counter my suspicision that we're pissing into the wind while countries like India and China triple their energy demands and build hundreds of coal plants.

Nice graph, but please explain how it answers any of MileHighKiwi's concerns?
From what I could tell he was asking what difference NZ could make in the face of the energy needs of China and India, and their use of coal to achieve it.

A better answer would be that we can only virtue signal and hope that that is sufficient to influence the major players.

Hmmm... seemed self-evident to me. When the price of solar drops below the price of coal, China and India will switch from coal to solar. We don't need to do anything about China or India... they will take care of themselves.

However:

1. The graph is perhaps misleading in that it lumps coal and gas together. Could it be that coal is cheaper than gas.

2. As the demand for coal reduces in the face of people switching to solar, so the price of coal will reduce, and the top of the "Coal / Natural Gas Cost Band" will lower.

Maybe it was self evident to you, but not everybody lives inside the echo chamber.

But it might not have not been so obvious how a graph that ended 7 years ago comparing costs in the USA between solar modules and coal/gas stops China and India building coal fired power stations.
The NREL is a government funded organisation whose purpose is to investigate and promote renewable energy sources for the USA.
So NZ demands India and China stop building coal fired power stations (because solar in the USA is cheaper), or we'll what? And before there is yet another echo, not suggesting we do nothing here.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

frankv

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#2190687 4-Mar-2019 13:55

Fair points about that being US-centric. My thought was that, coal and energy being commodities, prices will be more-or-less the same worldwide, apart from transportantion costs. And that's borne out by an article from 2017 that says it applies *moreso* to India and China.

From that article, a quote from Gandolfi (the head of European Utilities Research for Goldman Sachs): “What started as a decarbonization process, thanks to better technology, is about to become a process driven by cost and economics.”

We don't need to demand that India and China do anything. They'll do it themselves, because it saves them money.

All the money invested in solar & wind energy research over the last several decades will now pay off big-time in reduced emissions.

tdgeek

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#2190689 4-Mar-2019 13:59

Climate Change related. https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/110996655/a-limited-indiapakistan-nuclear-war-could-wreck-the-climate-and-trigger-global-famine

Makes you wonder how a primitive species like humans can remain here for too long, as our brain causes ego and money to overrule natural survival instincts

gzt

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#2191387 5-Mar-2019 14:47

frankv:
Dingbatt:
gzt:
MileHighKiwi: Would love to hear some statistical evidence to counter my suspicision that we're pissing into the wind while countries like India and China triple their energy demands and build hundreds of coal plants.

Nice graph, but please explain how it answers any of MileHighKiwi's concerns?
From what I could tell he was asking what difference NZ could make in the face of the energy needs of China and India, and their use of coal to achieve it.

A better answer would be that we can only virtue signal and hope that that is sufficient to influence the major players.

Hmmm... seemed self-evident to me. When the price of solar drops below the price of coal, China and India will switch from coal to solar. We don't need to do anything about China or India... they will take care of themselves.

However:

1. The graph is perhaps misleading in that it lumps coal and gas together. Could it be that coal is cheaper than gas.

2. As the demand for coal reduces in the face of people switching to solar, so the price of coal will reduce, and the top of the "Coal / Natural Gas Cost Band" will lower.

The other problem with the graph is comparing the module cost only to the entire fixed cost of conventional plant. Build that module into a thing and position it correctly costs are slightly higher.

That said the graph shows the solar price falling over time and very indicative of where things are going.

wellygary

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#2191397 5-Mar-2019 15:27

frankv:

We don't need to demand that India and China do anything. They'll do it themselves, because it saves them money.

All the money invested in solar & wind energy research over the last several decades will now pay off big-time in reduced emissions.

Solar ain't there yet,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnparnell/2018/12/30/new-chinese-solar-plant-undercuts-cost-of-coal-power/#4b64bb711182

Despite the headline, Solar is not a cheaper offering than coal as it can only provide power for less than the coal price when its actually producing power, (ie when the sun is out),

To compete with coals night production solar needs to be twinned with some other form of generation (or storage) both of which will raise the overall cost per unit...

Yes Solar is good to meet new daytime peak demand, but it isn't good enough to displace base load generation....

The easiest thing to replace coal with is Gas which gives you a 50% Co2 reduction, (and that exactly what is happening in the US as fracking has a by product of lots of gas.....)

MileHighKiwi

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#2191465 5-Mar-2019 18:14

tdgeek:
I dont buy the NZ is too small to make a difference argument at all. Its a people issue. When its a Kiwi or American or Lithuanian makes no difference. Houston or Shanghai can easily say, we are too small to make a difference

Earth's population is increasing by 83m per year. Nigeria will have half a billion people in 30 years, many other countries are on similar trajectories. World population is projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. Its about 7.5 today..

I dont think people grasp the overwhelming odds stacked against us. If you think people can change the climate by changing their own behaviours like eating organic, taking the train etc ..you're very idealistic.

I dont deny climate change, I am opposed to working kiwis being taxed to death to fund the types of policies people think will make a difference. I can put my own money in the fireplace, thank you very much. That nutter in the states with the new green deal needs trillions of dollars for her fantasy projects. Who's going to pay the bill? Average Joe.

gzt

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#2191494 5-Mar-2019 18:45

wellygary:
frankv:

We don't need to demand that India and China do anything. They'll do it themselves, because it saves them money.

All the money invested in solar & wind energy research over the last several decades will now pay off big-time in reduced emissions.

Solar ain't there yet,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnparnell/2018/12/30/new-chinese-solar-plant-undercuts-cost-of-coal-power/#4b64bb711182

Despite the headline, Solar is not a cheaper offering than coal as it can only provide power for less than the coal price when its actually producing power, (ie when the sun is out),

To compete with coals night production solar needs to be twinned with some other form of generation (or storage) both of which will raise the overall cost per unit...

Yes Solar is good to meet new daytime peak demand, but it isn't good enough to displace base load generation....

The easiest thing to replace coal with is Gas which gives you a 50% Co2 reduction, (and that exactly what is happening in the US as fracking has a by product of lots of gas.....)

You are correct in that solar requires storage if you want to have the benefit when the sun is not shining.

You are incorrect when you say solar cannot displace base load.

Solar already can and does displace base load during the day. Hypothetically translating deployment of low cost solar to NZ that means more water left in lakes during dry periods for example.

gzt

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#2191523 5-Mar-2019 19:28

MileHighKiwi:
tdgeek:
I dont buy the NZ is too small to make a difference argument at all. Its a people issue. When its a Kiwi or American or Lithuanian makes no difference. Houston or Shanghai can easily say, we are too small to make a difference

Earth's population is increasing by 83m per year. Nigeria will have half a billion people in 30 years, many other countries are on similar trajectories. World population is projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. Its about 7.5 today..

I dont think people grasp the overwhelming odds stacked against us. If you think people can change the climate by changing their own behaviours like eating organic, taking the train etc ..you're very idealistic.

I dont deny climate change, I am opposed to working kiwis being taxed to death to fund the types of policies people think will make a difference. I can put my own money in the fireplace, thank you very much. That nutter in the states with the new green deal needs trillions of dollars for her fantasy projects. Who's going to pay the bill? Average Joe.

On the plus side: Nigeria. Perfect for solar power generation. The solar price will have to go a lot lower to compete with their abundance of oil and the disadvantages. And it will go lower.

tdgeek

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#2191890 6-Mar-2019 07:29

MileHighKiwi:
tdgeek:

I dont buy the NZ is too small to make a difference argument at all. Its a people issue. When its a Kiwi or American or Lithuanian makes no difference. Houston or Shanghai can easily say, we are too small to make a difference

Earth's population is increasing by 83m per year. Nigeria will have half a billion people in 30 years, many other countries are on similar trajectories. World population is projected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. Its about 7.5 today..

I dont think people grasp the overwhelming odds stacked against us. If you think people can change the climate by changing their own behaviours like eating organic, taking the train etc ..you're very idealistic.

I dont deny climate change, I am opposed to working kiwis being taxed to death to fund the types of policies people think will make a difference. I can put my own money in the fireplace, thank you very much. That nutter in the states with the new green deal needs trillions of dollars for her fantasy projects. Who's going to pay the bill? Average Joe.

The odds are not overwhelming, they are to high, we will not reduce climate change, because we dont want to, or at least we do want to, but after our money love is satisfied first. Plus it wont affect us, it will affect the young children have now and from then on. That's the reality. But if we decide things we can change are too small to worry about, then it will come sooner, or if there is an opportunity to slow this before the tipping point, it will be too late. I'm not aware that we have climate change taxes, and I don't see NZ Governments being progressive at all in this area. Money, Votes. Again it comes back to us who bury our head in the sand

Rikkitic

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#2191911 6-Mar-2019 08:38

Like the proverbial frog in the pan of boiling water, we will sit around telling each other all the reasons why it won't make any difference what we do anyway so there is no point in giving anything up or changing our lifestyles. We will do this until the disaster we have created becomes so overwhelming that it touches everyone, even those who see higher taxes and more efficient vehicles as some kind of left-wing plot. We humans are resourceful and cunning, if nothing else, and I suspect when the world does finally crash around us, the survivors will find ways to counter the worst of the damage they have done, such as completely banning all fossil fuels and putting mirrors in space and sequestering carbon in abandoned mines and other things we haven't even though of yet. Of course this will require far, far more resources and expenditure that it would have if it had been done on time, and the cost to survivors will be much, much more than the modest tax increases and minor inconveniences they otherwise would have had to put up with, and it will be much too late for the untold billions who have died from famine, warfare and ecological collapse, but a few miserable souls will probably still cling on in a devastated world wishing they had had the courage to be the first to make changes.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

tdgeek

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#2191917 6-Mar-2019 08:52

We complain about taxes, life, wars, global crises. A day will come when the only news that is relevant is the daily crises with food, famine, we need another desalination plant, as we battle financially and physically with what a +3 C world is dealing to us. Its like living in a tropical fish tank and the owner took off for a year

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