This is Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith. My original goal for this Radio Ecoshock series on alternative energy, was to find the most reasonable critic of green energy, who was not directly a beneficiary of competing energy - that is, a person with academic credentials who is not receiving money or other benefits from the coal, oil, and gas industries. California author and green energy expert Ozzie Zehner fits that bill.
I ran Ozzie's speech at Google last week on Radio Ecoshock. If you missed that, download it from our web site at ecoshock.org. Or listen to it on our Soundcloud page.
Then I hoped to hold a second program where I ask for listener questions, and pose them to Ozzie in an extended interview. Ozzie replied he is willing to come on Radio Ecoshock, but could not appear until next summer, due to a project he is presently working on. So we can't hear from Ozzie right now, but I hope we can pick this up again later in the season.
Ozzie applies his years of study, his European experience, and his keen intellect to persuade us alternative energy like wind and solar are not really green. They cannot power our civilization without heavy fossil fuel inputs. They damage the environment, from cutting down trees to toxic bi-products. We should put our focus and money into indirect methods of cutting carbon dioxide by creating a better society. In particular, Ozzie suggests population control, via a fair health care system, could be coupled with conservation, urban densification, and other energy saving techniques to reduce carbon emissions.
Ozzie makes some statements that raise serious questions. For example, he says increasing the current low amount of solar energy in the United States would bankrupt the American government. I thought the U.S. government was already bankrupt, and not because of solar subsidies. Going even further with solar to power our world would, Ozzie claims, destroy civilization within a generation. Later in this program, I'll check on some of the claims made in Ozzie's presentation, and suggest other possibilities. Hang in for that. But first we have a conversation with clean energy tech guru Dan Miller.
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DAN MILLER ON GREEN ENERGY AND OZZIE ZEHNER
Dan Miller is Managing Director of The Roda Group, a Berkeley venture capital group he co-founded that is focused on clean tech.
The other principal and chairman of that group is Roger A Strauch, who was the first CEO of "Ask Jeeves" which is now ask.com. The Roda Group has several interesting projects on the go. In the show, we talk a little about their new tech to improve common batteries for use with renewable energy. They also have a company claiming the tech to remove CO2 from power plant emissions (carbon capture). It's startling to think in the future we may be able to run a gas fired power plant with no CO2 emissions. We'll see.
Dan Miller has a history in the telecommunications and aerospace industries. Dan is passionate about solving climate change, as you can hear in . Dan regularly gives talks to the public and business on climate change. We have a wide- ranging discussion on alternative energy, plus his appraisal of the problems with the Ozzie Zehner talk.
Dan makes a lot of good points. Probably the best is that Ozzie seems to make his projections based on our current energy system, rather than assessing the changes as more and more renewable energy comes online. Or course, since fossil fuels are limited, the world must change to renewable energy sooner or later. If later, we encounter climate catastrophe first.
UPDATE ON OZZIE ZEHNER:
Since making this program, I've been advised by a couple of listeners that Ozzie Zehner left his car company history out of his online bio. He graduated from Kettering University in Flint Michigan, a school formerly known as General Motors Institute. Then it appears Ozzie worked for the Opel Division of General Motors in Europe for at least 3 years. I don't know if this background influenced his low opinion of electric cars, or whether he was involved in any part of General Motors that famously "killed" it's electric car. Certainly his General Motors history would indicate some experience and interest in cars. It should be part of his online bio, in my opinion.
What follows is mostly a print version of my comments in this week's Radio Ecoshock show.
IN MANY CASES I AGREE WITH OZZIE ZEHNER
Before I begin to counter some of Ozzie Zehners' positions on alternative energy, I want to outline the many ways I agree with Zehner. I appreciate his courage in speaking unpopular thoughts. I can't emphasize this enough. Ozzie Zehner, in his book "Green Illusions" and in his talks, raises fundamental issues about our direction into the future. Don't miss any opportunity to learn from him.
For example, Zehner says alternative energy cannot power the wasteful civilization we have not, without killing off the planet. I agree. A society powered by alternative energy will have to use a lot less power, and should, to preserve what is left of nature.
There are many ways this can happen, too many ways to list them all there. In short, we could stop making things that don't last, stop buying things we don't need, and make sure our purchases are the least ecologically and socially harmful possible. Those require a major change in lifestyles in developed countries, and changes in aspirations in less developed nations.
Alternative energy if properly applied can also reduce the waste involved in centralized power production and transmission. It drives me crazy that we lose about 50% of all electricity produced in the big grid model of transmission. Solar panels on the roof, or a wind generator in the yard (when appropriate) involves a few feet of transmission, rather than a continental grid. I suggest the rural electrification program of the 1930's needs to be reversed. We should power only major cities and corridors with the grid. Remote homes, farms and mines should produce their own power.
We can also get a lot smarter, either personally or through computer-mediated power management, to avoid the peaks of use that demand coal or other fossil fuel backup. There is no need for all fridges and washing machines to run at the same predictable times.
Demanding Passivhaus or net-zero standards for all new construction would eventually replace most of our inefficient building stock. Dump the all glass models for apartments and skyscraper office buildings, replacing them with smaller windows and insulated walls.
The list goes on, and Ozzie supports these kinds of energy changes. Green energy will not power the wasteful system we have now. In a coming Radio Ecoshock show, I plan to run an in-depth conversation about that, from the Post Carbon Institute. Meanwhile, Zehner is correct about trying to fill the "leaky bucket" we have now. "We don't have an energy crisis, we have a consumption crisis" he says. That's absolutely correct. [26:40]
There is also a lot of truth that the promise of green energy has paradoxically encouraged some people to carry on with deadly amounts of energy use. The drive for a technical fix is very strong. It's true just pasting a few solar panels on a complete energy hog of a building is window dressing. It's also true that we might very well wreck the earth if we engage in a binge of making and installing alternative energy to keep the status quo. Few sane people are suggesting that.
We may create a burst of new carbon, in a mass plan to change over from fossil fuel plants to solar and wind energy. However, as Mark Jacobson from Stanford told us, this new carbon can be offset by cleaner production anywhere from six months to a year later. Then there is a long period, up to 25 years or more, when carbon would be reduced greatly, from the alternative of not building that green energy.
I do object when Ozzie Zehner uses emotional triggers, which are not based on science. He compares solar power, for example, to a religion. Some of his heated words are not the language of science, but might be at home on Fox News. I feel he communicates a personal grudge which remains unexplained.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Let's start with electric vehicles.
In his Google talk, and in other talks, Ozzie says: "But the National Academy of Sciences did a study, a life-cycle analysis. It's the broadest life-cycle analysis done on electric cars and they found that the harm steming from electric cars are a little bit larger than the harm stemming from a regular internal combustion engine of a car the same size.
In fact the only way we can find that electric cars are cleaner is if we narrow our research to just one metric, like CO2."
First of all, this one narrow metric of carbon dioxide is actually the largest threat to humans and all species in millions of years. Building carbon dioxide threatens us with great harm, and possibly extinction. This is a completely different "metric" than possible increased cancers from improperly storing the toxic waste from batteries, or solar panels. Carbon dioxide is the really big deal, Reducing it is a bonus strong enough on it's own to justify electric cars. Ozzie doesn't tell us about the scale of threats.
The paper he refers to was published by The Nation Academies Press. It's "Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use". The book represents the work of many scientists and was issued by a committee of the National Research Council in 2010.
You can find out more about Ozzie's objections to electric vehicles in his feature article in the publication "Spectrum". It was published June 20, 2013. The title is "Unclean at any Speed".
The conclusions of the 2010 National Academy Press publication that Ozzie uses are directly contradicted by more recent research, in two papers published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, or PNAS.
The first is "Valuation of plug-in vehicle life-cycle air emissions and oil displacement benefits" by Jeremy J. Michaleka et al.
That study does not support the radical statements that Zehner makes in his talk.
The most recent study was published by scientists in PNAS this November 2014, about two years after Ozzie's speech. It's titled "" by Christopher W. Tessuma et al.
This paper summarizes the situation as follows:
"We find that powering vehicles with corn ethanol or with coal-based or 'grid average' electricity increases monetized environmental health impacts by 80% or more relative to using conventional gasoline. Conversely, EVs powered by low-emitting electricity from natural gas, wind, water, or solar power reduce environmental health impacts by 50% or more. Consideration of potential climate change impacts alongside the human health outcomes described here further reinforces the environmental preferability of EVs powered by low-emitting electricity relative to gasoline vehicles."
Sure, if you run electric cars on biofuels made of corn, or on coal, you make the environment worse. There's no suprise there. But electric vehicles can easily use clean sources, unlike gas vehicles. So far most electric vehicles have been sold in California, which uses very, very little corn ethanol or coal. Ozzie told his audience electric vehicles run on bull manure. New science shows they can be a much better choice, not only for the climate, but for public health. Sorry Ozzie.
CAN ALTERNATIVE ENERGY REPLACE ITSELF?
My next major objection to Ozzie's presentation is when he says alternative energy cannot replace itself. As we heard from Dan Miller, there are already solar manufacturing facilities run on solar power. Ozzie says:
"The problem is that certain types of industries rely on certain types of energy. So it's difficult to explore for copper and bring the trucks out there if they are only running on electricity." [ at 46:20 of this Radio Ecoshock show]
So I looked into that. My research finds that mining companies, particularly in South Africa, are beginning to power their intensive milling operations with alternative energy. See this article "Unlikely bedfellows: mines that run on solar or wind power" by Andrew Topf for example.
Certainly mines can operate with hydro power or nuclear power, which existing mines already use. Electricity is electricity, and that's what mines use most.
Surely we can't run the big trucks on anything but fossil fuels? Nonsense. Electric vehicles can be stronger, with more torque, real working power, than any diesel engine. An all-electric mine is completely possible. Again, as we see often in his work, it seems to me that Ozzie's vision is limited by what exists today, the old fossil industrial model. That's the way it is, so it's the only way it could be, Zehner tries to tell us, reinforcing our stereotypes.
German heavy industry has run entirely fossil free on some days, including manufacturing wind generators. Iceland runs entirely on renewable geothermal energy - including it's energy-intensive aluminum industry.
SOLAR POWER A THREAT TO FORESTS? REALLY?
Next up: Ozzie Zehner spends much time in his talk explaining that solar power is a threat to our forests. This argument against deforestation by solar power is ludicrous. Ozzie found a few instances where solar panels were installed by cutting down trees. In the global picture of deforestation, the pin-prick of solar deforestation is so small it could not be seen. We should also remember the deforestation caused by tar sands mining, creating roads for fracking rigs, and mountain-top coal mining. He doesn't mention those or compare them. This argument is a straw man.
Similarly, the fact that some maintenance is needed for solar power in a desert setting is also a straw man agrument. First of all, a study done by an oil producing state like the United Arab Emirates is immediately suspect. They are evaluating a product that could wipe out their profits and possibly their economy.
Secondly, what other source of energy runs with without employees? Coal-fired, gas-fired, oil-fired electric plants all need employees too, and regular maintenance. These power stations also occasionally explode, which solar does not. Oil and coal power plants kill people locally and even at great distances with their emissions. Solar operators might have to clean dust off the solar panels. So what? I wonder why Ozzie works so hard to catalog minor to very minor aspects of alternative energy? And why doesn't he give us comparable figures from fossil fuel plants?
SOLAR TO KILL OFF CIVILIZATION IN ONE GENERATION?
Ozzie says: "The Mohave Desert may be the Saudi Arabia of solar. But if we were to cover it with solar cells, and cover the world's deserts with solar cells, it would destroy civilization as we know it, within a single generation."
I would love to ask Ozzie about his sources, or even his reasoning for such a statement. First of all, no one is suggesting, especially Mark Jacobson, that we could or should "cover the world's deserts with solar cells". That is a vast area, and not what Jacobson said was needed at all.
Nobody is suggesting we cover ALL the world's deserts with solar panels. The European Union worked through a plan to power most of Europe with a relatively small area of the Sahara desert. So Ozzie is arguing with a plan that has never been suggested by anyone that I know of.
Secondly, the idea that deploying solar fully would kill off civilization in a single generation is wild speculation, and the kind of scare statement we can do without.
He then says thermal solar has the same side effects, even though it is mainly concrete and glass, not the heavy metals in amounts used in other panels. Solar thermal may even use liquid sodium as batteries, instead of lithium. It's a quick statement that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
SOLAR TO BANKRUPT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT?
"What if we multiply solar cells by 100 [times current production], which would incidentally bankrupt the federal government".
This is another scare statement. Obviously, if we stopped subsidizing the fossil fuel industries, and used a free market system where the consumer of energy pays for not only the power, but the carbon pollution, we could multiply solar production by 100 times without bankrupting the federal government. Only a government built on fossil power and fossil industry corruption could go bankrupt by building clean energy. More fearful listener hears that we cannot proceed with green energy without bankrupting society, which is nonsense. [18:30]
Maybe you could reach a few trillion dollars in taxpayer costs if you based all your calculations on government give-aways meant to stimulate the beginning of an American solar industry. But who would stick with that? Once solar becomes more affordable, available, and common, it can easily compete with coal - assuming coal subsidies are dropped.
Anyway, the U.S. government seems headed for bankruptcy on it's own, with trillions of dollars in new debts, with no help from solar. China will likely increase it's solar power by 100 times what it had in 1990. I doubt the government will collapse because of that. It's a strange claim, and an extreme one, that does not help his argument.
WHY LEAVE OUT OTHER ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES?
Why does Ozzie Zehner pick up on solar energy as his main thrust against green energy. We'll grant him the time limitations in his talk - but still wind energy has become the major source of power for countries like Denmark, and provides a lot of power for Germany. We don't hear about geothermal energy, which already powers Iceland, and can do much more in many countries, including Australia and the United States. Then there's hydro power and nuclear power. I agree that nuclear is too dangerous to use, but it's there now.
My point is, we don't get a picture of solar energy as part of a large alternative energy mix, doing what it does best where it can. Instead we are brought to fear the expansion of some allegedly toxic giant.
Zehner doesn't offer us a balance between using alternative energy, with it's known risks, versus not using it, with the gigantic risk of mass extinction, including ourselves. As Dan Miller says, he doesn't really seem to get the big risks of climate change.
Assuming we have to choose between better health care (already available in almost every other developed country) and alternative energy is a false choice. We can do both. We will continue to use energy. It may as well be less harmful energy. Climate change threatens to wipe out not only our health, but our food and water sources in many cases.
DOES ADDING ALTERNATIVE ENERGY JUST INCREASE ENERGY WASTE?
Zehner says there is no proof that adding alternative energy actually decreases the use of fossil fuels. The Jevons Paradox, which he doesn't cite directly, calling it the "boomerang effect" has been true. It's a big worry, but the past is not necessarily an image of the future. For various reasons, the United States HAS decreased it's emissions and it's use of fossil fuels. Germany has greatly reduced their fossil fuel emissions, not only through the addition of solar and wind power, but also through better building techniques, mass transit, more energy awareness, and so on.
To say adding a cleaner energy source will just add to the waste, and make things worse, is demonstrably wrong already in some countries, and will become increasingly wrong, as more alternative energy is added to the mix.
HIS OTHER ARGUMENTS AGAINST SOLAR POWER
Zehner says solar panels have the illusion of a price drop, which are really based on subsidies. But he fails to provide the comparative assessment of massive subsidies to solar competitors, like oil and gas. These fossil fuels get direct subsidies and tax breaks of many billions of dollars from governments, for decades, while they build their empires. They get free dumping of carbon dioxide into the air, and do not pay for the health costs of the pollution. The whole highway system is build for their products. The subsidies to fossil fuels are almost beyond calculation, and make the tiny subsidies to solar and wind laughable.
His argument that solar panels tend to age, and parts like the regulators have to be replaced is specious. Anyone who runs a fossil powered car knows they fall apart, and need maintenance. Ditto power plants of any kind. How do the costs of solar power compare to fossil power, that's what we need to know, and that Ozzie doesn't provide. That is a disservice, warning us away from a source of power that may in fact be cheaper to maintain, but he doesn't tell us that.
Again in the so-tiny-it-doesn't-matter reasons to not install solar: the panels might be stolen. What are the figures for stolen solar in the United States? What about in Europe? He doesn't say. Your car is far more likely to be stolen. So don't ever buy a car? Would you buy that argument?
He's also found some solar panels not facing the sun. What percentage of solar installations is that? .0001 percent or less? Why look for human foibles to argue against a much cleaner technology which might prevent the climate catastrophe? It's a shopping list of pointless objections.
In his talk, Ozzie Zehner claims "Even some of the most expensive options for dealing with CO2 would be become cost-competitive long before today's solar technologies". Really? First of all, I'm not aware of ANY viable technology for reliably removing and storing CO2, other than not producing it, as solar does. So he's comparing a technology that does not exist, with one that does. Second, I haven't seen any such paper, nor are we likely to. I think it's an example of the extreme statments that Zehner makes, in the long reach to make his case.
While it may be true that the current manufacturing techniques making solar panels involves the release of greenhouse gases thousands of times more powerful than CO2, Zehner doesn't give us a comparison between these billion parts per million emissions, with the masses of CO2 averted by the use of solar. It's just the tip of an iceberg of facts and studies we need to evaluate this claim. Perhaps he includes such numbers in his book, where he has more space.
Zehner tells his audience "There's no evidence that alternative energy offsets fossil fuel use in the United States". First of all, why limit this statement to the United States, which is the world model for energy profligacy. The U.S. is more or less the last of the developed nation to deploy alternative energy on a scale which matters. America has avoided infrastructure like mass transit, high-speed rail and other techniques which can match up well with alternative energy to reduce fossil dependence. It's a misleading statement, implying that alternative energy cannot reduce fossil fuel use, which is a wrong-headed approach. [16.:30]
Ozzie says: "Most importantly, alternative energy financing relies ultimately on the kind of economic growth that fossil fuels provide." This is an intriguing argument, with some truth. However, as discussed above, continuing to find and provide fossil fuels also relies on growth. The growth model may be breaking, which threatens all energy sources, not just solar.
Because once installed solar does not require the continued production and importation of fuel, it may in fact be a better answer to the problem of needing continual growth. In any case, it is the large economic system of growth that is unsustainable, not the power system feeding it. If we disinvest from things like Tar sands and Arctic drilling, not to mention military, we could create much more alternative energy, even without growth. [19:10]
WHY SLAG GREEN ENERGY?
Zehner repeatedly maligns people who want solar power as being religious, worshipping solar cells and setting up temples to them. [at 29:10] Then he says we make a "fetish" out of solar cells, using a negative image from psychology. Let's stop the vilification of people trying to find solutions to climate change. Zehner frankly fails to offer good solutions himself. Sorry, his solutions of better health care and densification of cities will take decades, and we don't have that long.
Zehner replies to a question about Mark Jacobson's research, by saying "if you ask a ridiculous question, you can find a ridiculous answer". [54:10] Is it ridiculous to ask if we can find enough power using alternative energy sources? I don't think so. Listen to my recent Radio Ecoshock interview with Mark Jacobson. He says Jacobson hasn't asked meaningful questions. In fact, Ozzie's answer is very weak and dismissive of the work of a major scientist, who has published over 100 valuable scientific papers. Jacobson at Stanford is far above Ozzie's grade. [and 55:20]
One of Ozzie's questioners asks if there is any example for history of conserving our way out of a crisis? (41:50). That is the crux of Zehner's argument, but he has no such examples. He might have given the Soviet Union, or Cuba after 1990 as examples, but did not.
IN THE END, I AGREE WITH A LOT HE SAYS...
I've run out of time, before I could go into the many more ways I agree with Ozzie Zehner. He's dead on about our addiction to technical solutions, and our harmful consumer lifestyles. We have a tendency to damage nature with the best of intentions.
I like Ozzie Zehner and his work. He serves as a valuable caution of how we can do alternative energy in damaging ways. But I think his main venture is a disservice to the future. We need solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and all sorts of non-carbon energy. We need them quickly.
"Clean energy is less energy" says Zehner. Yes that's true, but clean energy is not a situation of NO energy. We will continue to use energy, and getting it from the Canadian Tar Sands, or Arctic deep water drilling, will fill the atmosphere with carbon and kill us. We need to use the greenest tech to produce the minimum energy we need.
Fortunately, Ozzie Zehner can't stop solar or any green energy. I'm told one out of four homes in Australia has solar panels on the roof right now. European countries are decarbonizing rapidly. The nations that listen to Ozzie, and stall new forms of climate-friendly power, will be last in the economic competition. America needs to catch up quickly, or be stuck in a left-behind old coal age.
At the end of his talk, Ozzie Zehner calls for "a green movement that is not simply a receptacle for energy firms and car companies to plug into. A green movement that looks beyond the eco-gadgets on the stage to consider the social and environmental justices behind the curtain." He's absolutely right. I applaud Ozzie Zehner for demanding we move into the future with our eyes open, always asking questions.
Next week, we'll conclude this series on the prospects for alternative energy, with a conversation with a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute.
I'm Alex Smith. Find all our past Radio Ecoshock programs free at the web site ecoshock.org. Or listen to our most recent programs at the .
Thank you for listening, and thank you for caring about our world.
24 comments:
I posted this comment on Google's Youtube channel for their google talks...
See "Green reality vs Ozzie Zehner" for a total dismantling of this disgusting human's arguements at https://ecoshock.info/2015/01/green-reality-vs-ozzie-zehner.html. Ozzie is a slick oil salesman who I'm sure is laughing all the way to the bank, with a hidden swiss bank account filled by the Koch brothers. I found his entire presentation disgusting, filled with vague "hot button" manipulative words, devoid of any real DATA (because there is NO CURRENT data to support his garbage) and all geared to achieve the objective of getting caring people to dismiss renewables as a viable and NECESSARY option and to diffuse the growing anger and urge to get off filthy planet killing fossil fuels...
What angers me most is he pits conservation strategies against renewables which is just ridiculous... the two go hand in hand, with conservation both reducing fossil filth AND making it POSSIBLE to effectively transition to solar... The two are an intertwined solution, NOT either or choices.
I am dismayed at Google giving this lying or dysfunctional human a powerful voice...whereas Mark Jacobson, Amory Lovins and other truly visionary and highly respected humans are ignored...I was gratified by a few googlers asking pertinent questions, to which Ozzie had NO real insights into but the entire presentation was both shameful and the perfect ploy of industries which must die or we will all too soon.
Please listen to Alex Smith's discussion with Dan Miller, https://soundcloud.com/radioecoshock who totally destroys Ozzie's surreptitious garbage. The beginning is all too slow, but by 10 minutes in, Dan begins dismantling Ozzie bit by bit...still way too nice to what I consider a traitor to children everywhere.
"An all-electric mine is completely possible."
No it's not. What you're really saying is an "all electric civilization (as advanced as ours) is possible" without fossil fuel at any point in the entire process, and this is categorically NOT true.
Not this civilization. Another, much lower civilization is possible, and dramatically smaller, but not our energy intensive civilization.
It is not true because you have conveniently forgotten all of the downstream inputs created by fossil fuel to create the mining, processing, manufacture, distribution to support mining (or a city, or a house) and the human requirement require to support all of it (they have to be housed, fed, clothed, etc. too).
Example: we don't have electric transportation to transport the average food miles (1500) and we certainly are not eating locally, nor will many of us be able to ever eat locally (can't be done).
So right off the bat, we've got limited numbers of humans to run the city or the mine, since we can't feed them properly without a distribution network that runs on fossil fuels. The end result is less humans, less work, less production, less manufacturing, less mining, smaller cities.
It's always been about how much energy a civilization can produce, which in turn is fundamentally about how much food it can produce, but then you have to transport it, refrigerate it, package it, preserve it, all of which can only be just so much without downstream oil inputs.
We can't put clothes on the workers either either, since the factories that make the clothes are dependent upon the downstream inputs of fossil fuels.
I've only barely begun to describe the real scope of the problem, it is exponentially larger then this.
You do know what EROEI is, correct? The only reason civilization has advance this far is because the EROEI ratio has been so high. When that falls with any other power source (which it does, dramatically), all of civilization an its capacities and size will fall in direct proportion to the ratio.
I'm quite surprised you're this naive. Alternative energy will not save modern civilization, but it can save a fewer number of us, and only as long as we can still produce the food, parts, and raw materials needed some other way.
That's the bottom line, and it's always been the bottom line. When it can't, civilization contracts as the energy production declines.
This has been true throughout human history by the way. There is no reason it would be any different now.
lifeofliberty: You're falling into the same fallacy that Ozzie does. You start with saying that our society runs on fossil fuels and you conclude that we can't live without fossil fuels. We're addicted to energy, not fossil fuels. A few points:
1. If we continue business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, the carrying capacity of the Earth will certainly go down, probably dramatically. So sticking with fossil fuels to maintain our current population levels is not one of the options being made available to us by Mother Nature.
2. If we begin to transition to low-carbon energy, then the carbon-intensity of everything we do -- mine minerals, grow and transport food, etc. -- will start to go down. So if you switch the mine machinery to electricy powered by renewables, it is still a good thing even if the mine workers are still eating food delivered with diesel trucks. The switchover will not be overnight. It will take many decades.
3. A rising fee on the CO2 content of fossil fuels, with all the money collected being returned to the public, will greatly lower emissions through energy efficiency, conservation (using less... most of the energy in the US is wasted), and switching to renewables and next generation nuclear. Such a policy will also create millions of jobs and increase GDP:
http://citizensclimatelobby.org/remi-report/
4. At a high enough CO2 fee (~$100/ton) it will eventually be cheaper to use "air capture" to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and put it back underground. This technology is still in its infancy and, unfortunately, there is no business case to commercially develop it right now. Once this is available, we can offset the remaining fossil fuel systems (such as air travel). It is already possible to capture the CO2 that comes out of power plants (a much easier problem than getting it out of the atmosphere) but it is currently expensive... the price will drop dramatically in the next decade.
4. Note that the "external" costs of fossil fuels are real and must be paid by you, me, and the rest of society. We are paying some of them now through higher taxes and insurance to pay for things like Hurricane Sandy, higher health costs, and higher food prices. If we continue on the path we're on, these external costs will rise dramatically and pose a clear and present danger to our nation and the world.
So the transition to a low carbon future won't be easy and it may not be pretty, but we should get started now.
Great points, Dan... Furthermore the rapid advances in materials research, biological systems, producing a vast array of need chemicals and products with redesigned bacterial and viral buddies...the future is really an open book and people locked in narrow minded thinking get us nowhere.
And NO ONE is saying this will be easy. Indeed, we're already locked into a horrific carbon overload planet wide and it will take all the genius and ingenuity we can muster to get us out of this self indulgent mess we've gotten ourselves into.
I spent 13 years in GAO's Office of Special Programs branch beginning with the oil embargo exploring radical alternate futures/opportunities such as Ocean Farming, Offshore wind combined with Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, all amazing and doable...if we stop living as if we're in a box we can't get out of. Solar electric is near term, doable today and a huge part of such transitions, as is conservation, soil restoration and many other pathways being explored with vigor today...
My sig is "we make the future"...what we've done to date has been short sighted but we have the means to transition in amazing ways.
Doomers do nothing to get us there. Lazy, self indulgent losers... Hard work and thoughtful planning can restore the gifts we've been given.
Oh, and I can't resist... "lifeofliberty"???? Ozzie must have a harem of paid right wing duffus's following him around...always use such stupid crap for names... while in reality selling out their planet, children, AND LIBERTY to their Koch masters... How you sleep at night selling out the future I just don't know.
I periodically peruse facebooks climate forums and see the same arguments, or SCRIPS posted all over them with names like yours... hope your paycheck is worth it...
We are entering a time of peak minerals, peak food, peak water, peak energy and peak civilization. You know this to be true. Wind turbines use 10 times the nickel fossil fuel plants use and peak nickel will hit around 2025. Wind turbines use lots of copper and peak copper will hit around 2030. This list goes on and on.
A Nature study has concluded that because of intermittency, it takes 4X the amount of solar-wind power to displace on unit of fossil power.
Alex, you say we have to stop building stuff that doesn't last, but renewables only last some 30 years after which you have to replace them.
What you are saying is that we must switch from a fossil fuel economy to a mineral economy in a time of shortages. You know full well that the mining industry is one of the dirtiest, dangerous, corrupt businesses on earth.
The demise of life on earth does not rest on the merits of debate. Political reality divides us all. I am a big fan of your show, but again, we are being divided and conquered yet once again.
For the rational non-reactionaries, I've revamped my green energy critique with links to back up what I present. To wit. Although divisive, you are stumbling towards the crux of our dilemma. Cheers.
GREEN ENERGY FAIL 101
► Energy demands to increase 100% by 2060 says the IEA.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=energy+demand+forecast&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=cF2tVLadFovfsASl14HQDw&ved=0CEkQsAQ&biw=1366&bih=643
http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/pdf/Energy-economics/Energy-Outlook/BP_Energy_Outlook_Booklet_2013.pdf
► Emissions have to decrease 80% by 2030 says climate scientist, Kevin Anderson.
http://kevinanderson.info/blog/letter-to-the-pm-outlining-how-2c-demands-an-80-cut-in-eu-emissions-by-2030/
► To power England with 100% solar & wind, requires 25% of its land says physicist, David MacKay in 2012. Even if he is wrong, he makes a valid point.
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables?language=en
► 40% Green Energy requires 200% more copper says John Timmer of Ars Technica. Even performance improvements won't be enough in time.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/10/making-lots-of-renewable-energy-equipment-doesnt-boost-pollution/
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/renewable-energy-needs-huge-mineral-supply-16682
► Peak copper hits 2030 – 2040 says Ugo Bardi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64euF8DI0c
► Post peak copper production cannot accelerate at any price says Dave Lowell.
http://www.mining.com/web/peak-copper/
► This is true of any post peak mineral production.
► There is no real substitute for copper says Mat McDermott of Motherboard.
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/blog/there-are-no-substitutes-for-the-metals-in-your-smartphone
► We mined 50% of all the copper in human history in just the last 30 years.
► 100% green energy requires 500% more copper.
► Peak minerals includes more than just copper.
► By 2050, expect to be past peaks for tin, silver, nickel, cadmium and more.
► We move some 3 billion tons of earth per year to get 15 millions tons of copper.
► We can’t afford to mine 500% more copper at ever lower concentrations.
► We cannot recycle it into existence.
► We cannot conserve it into existence.
► Substituting aluminum for copper takes 5X the energy and is less safe.
► Google’s own Stanford Phd, green energy experts, Ross Koningstein and David Fork, tell IEEE Spectrum why green energy “simply won’t work” and is a “false dream” without major lifestyle changes.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/11/18/eight-pitfalls-in-evaluating-green-energy-solutions/
http://www.solarindustrymag.com/issues/SI1309/FEAT_05_Hazardous_Materials_Used_In_Silicon_PV_Cell_Production_A_Primer.html
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/08/battery-performance-deficit-disorder/
http://theenergycollective.com/barrybrook/471651/catch-22-energy-storage
Our “green” energy hi-tech future requires:
► conflict minerals,
► rare earth elements,
► heavy metals,
► nano metals and graphite.
Search for “rare earth mining in China” on YouTube and see what special hell your solar panels and wind turbines produce in Mongolia. China can do this because they have undercut all the world’s production of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) with low wages, low currency and no environmental enforcement. They can do this because they ignore the radioactive thorium that comes with mining high-value, heavy rare earth elements.
Rare earth elements can’t profitably be mined outside of China unless we can get power from radioactive thorium, the mining by-product found with heavy rare earth elements. We can’t afford to mine REEs while treating thorium as radioactive waste instead of as a profitable energy source. Burning thorium will pay for heavy REEs and provide the low-carbon base power “green” energy requires. We can use thorium reactors to clean up uranium waste, making it safer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGLC59rCCDc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLR39sT_bTs
.
Solar cell manufacturing produces 3 green house gases that are over 10,000 times worse than C02. They require all kinds of deadly liquid acids to manufacture. Solar panels lose efficiency at the rate of 1% per year lasting 20-25 years. The expensive inverters and batteries they require have to be continually replaced. The new thin cell panels use nano materials and are even more toxic with shorter lifespans. It doesn’t matter how “clean” the latest experimental solar panels are because existing manufacturing plants will stay open to recoup major investments. Prof. Jian Shuisheng of the Jiatong-University estimates the production of just 6 solar panels requires one ton of coal.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-always-as-green-as-you-think
Manufacturing just five, 1-megawatt, wind turbines produces 1 ton of radioactive residue and 75 tons of toxic, acidic water used to leach out the required neodymium. Wind turbines only work at 25% of their rated capacity 90% of the time. Over 2 million children died in the Congo for the conflict minerals green energy needs. Thousands of people die in Chinese mines every year for the minerals green energy needs. Wind power requires 10X as much nickel as fossil power. Peak nickel may hit by 2025.
http://www.roperld.com/science/minerals/nickel.htm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/renewable-energys-hidden-costs/
The Smithsonian Institute calculates wind turbine bird deaths.
Any other reason for bird deaths doesn't exonerate wind turbines.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind-turbines-really-kill-180948154/?no-ist
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/17/windfarm-company-pacificorp-sues-us-government-bird-deaths
New study on bat deaths due to wind turbines.
http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/wind-turbines-may-lure-bats-into-fatal-errors/
How much time, energy and minerals do you think we have?
► 99% of Rhinos gone since 1914.
► 97% of Tigers gone since 1914.
► 90% of Lions gone since 1993.
► 90% of Sea Turtles gone since 1980.
► 90% of Monarch Butterflies gone since 1995.
► 90% of Big Ocean Fish gone since 1950.
► 80% of Western Gorillas gone since 1955.
► 75% of River & Riverbank Species gone since 1970.
.. ► 75,000 dams block U.S. rivers built over 75 years.
► 60% of Forest Elephants gone since 1970.
► 50% of Great Barrier Reef gone since 1985.
► 50% of Human Sperm Counts gone since 1950.
► 50% of Fresh Water Fish gone since 1987.
► 40% of Giraffes gone since 2000.
► 30% of Marine Birds gone since 1995.
► 28% of Land Animals gone since 1970.
► 28% of All Marine Animals gone since 1970.
► 93 Elephants killed every single day.
► 2-3 Rhinos killed every single day.
► Bees die from malnutrition lacking bio-diverse pollen sources.
► Malnutrition weakens bee colonies for disease and poisoning.
► 10,000 years ago, humans and livestock occupied 0.01% of earth's vertebrate biomass.
► Humans and livestock now occupy 97% of earth's vertebrate biomass.
► 1,000,000 humans, net, are added to earth every 4½ days.
► 50% of vertebrate species died off in the last 50 years.
► 50% of remaining vertebrate species will die off in the next 40 years.
► +50% = Unstoppable Irreversible Catastrophic Cascading Extinctions Collapse.
► 75% Species Loss = Mass Extinction.
► Ocean acidification doubles by 2050, triples by 2100.
► World Bank says we have 5-10 years before we all fight for food and water.
► Green Energy provides 3% of total world energy use.
► World energy demand up 100% in 50 years.
► World emissions have drop 80% in 15 years for 50/50 chance of 2°C.
► It takes one ton of coal to make 6 solar panels.
► It takes 4 times the rated green energy to displace 1 equally rated unit of fossil energy.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n6/full/nclimate1451.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201206
So far, we have to replace fossil fuels with 4X its rated power, while emissions have to drop 80% while total energy demand doubles in the midst of energy, mineral, food and water shortages. Please don't be offended if I tell you this is fuckn impossible. You can't use solar panels to make 4X as much green energy without accelerating peak minerals, ecological destruction, water mismanagement etc.
There is growing evidence that clathrate methane emissions have been triggered with just 0.8°C, yet we are not even half way to 2°C. We could very easily reach 2°C by mid century.
If the Great Russian heat wave of 2010 had parked its ass over North America's bread basket, instead of over there, civilizational collapse would already be 4 years old.
Most dirty energy growth is going to come from poor countries as they fight tooth and nail to reach a standard of living we take for granted.
Watch this video of the secret history of the CIA, and compare the geo-political reality with your idealism. We went to war on the middle east because of the mere threat of shortages, not actual shortages.
I understand your defensive position is a function of fighting for the sake of your family. There are billions of poor who will burn coal to fight for the sake of their families.
Why do I think we should try even when I "know" we will fail?
In no particular order, here are the 5 top traded "commodities".
1) food
2) sex
3) oil
4) drugs
5) guns
RECENT BLACK-OPS HISTORY AND GEO-POLITICAL REALITY
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/counter-intelligence/
Here is just one way we can clean up nuclear waste while solving proliferation and storage problems while providing the emissions free base energy renewables require. As you know, James Hansen and other scientists have pleaded with the green community to accept new nuclear power to get us out of this. Yet, idealism has unbent its ears. Meanwhile, China will build 400 nuclear plants in 35 years and India has announced a commercial thorium plant by 2020. While the U.S. will have to replace all their renewable energy sources in a time of shortages and energy poverty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UXXwWOImm8
To all the folks posting long lists of things needed for renewables/civilization that are running out, please remember "peak oil". Peak conventional oil already happened about 8 years ago. But we can have as much oil as we want for the right price. You can even make liquid fuel out of CO2 and solar power!
As for running out of copper, perhaps carbon nanotubes or something else that works much better than copper will replace it in the next 20 years. As for rare-earth magnets needed for EVs, Tesla chose to go with an AC motor that doesn't use rare-earth magnets and it seems to go pretty fast!
Again, staying on the path we are on is not acceptable and, yes, even if we get on a low carbon energy path soon things will still get bad because we have already put too much CO2 in the air. However, things will get much worse than bad if we stay on our current path.
Changing the path is actually quite easy. All we need to do is put a rising price on the CO2 content of fossil fuels (and also regulate cement plants, cows, and a few other things). Under a "Fee and Dividend" (F&D) policy that ramps the fee on CO2 from $10/ton to $100/ton in 10 years, a recent economic analysis shows it will reduce CO2 emissions by 52% in 20 years. Want more? Raise it to $200 in 15 years. Besides lowering emissions, F&D will create millions of jobs and increase GDP by over a trillion dollars. What's not to love?
And like going to the Moon, a shift to a clean energy future will be an exciting, inspiring mission replete with hope and danger.
There is only one person in the whole world who makes these long lists, and that's me. I don't know why the whole world has to wait for a guy who cuts grass in a trailer park in Canada to say these things. I guess scientists are myopic skeptics. This is exactly what scares the shit out of me. WTF? I've pleaded with scientists of all sorts to reply to my lists, only Ozzie even deigned to even briefly acknowledge me. Being routinely ignored doesn't stop me.
Nanotubes are dangerous to inhale due to their small size and are ecologically untested. Technophile solutions are part of the problem. Every, and any new, technology has unintended health and ecological consequences. Like GM foods and the 80,000 untested chemicals in our biosphere, we are being treated as guinea pigs while they wait to see if they can get away with it or not. It was sold-out scientists and big business who bestowed those risks upon us.
1000% agree with 100% private "fee & dividend" with no share for corporations and governments. Sign, idealism rears its dreamy head again.
My dream is that such dividends are directly deposited, in a new world currency to overcome national regulatory differences and unite the world in the face of catastrophe. Even this won't be enough.
We have to stop the corporate MIC to co-ordinate a massive, multi-pronged, coordinated approach that challenges the very essence of our belief systems. I.E. -- free birth control, abortions and education for women and even men. Working together to challenge existential problems. Most of us can't even accept our own persoanl mortality, let alone mass extinction.
I am beginning to suspect that higher education and scientists are a huge part of the problem. Invested chicken shits are the norm here, with few exceptions. I guess I'm not afraid to speak up because I have so little to lose.
I am an uneducated, mildly autistic, maladjusted drug using misanthrope with ass-bergers syndrome who also has mild dyslexia. Other than that, I'm okay.
Somebody at Grist read my list and replied, "Nay-saying is easy. What exactly is your suggestion for moving forward?"
I replied,
nay-saying is not easy. i am routinely ignored and vilified. i cut grass for a living in a trailer park in Canada. solving the world's problems is not in my job description. James Hansen and a group of distinguished scientists asked the green community to accept new nuclear power to solve our problems, but idealists have unbent their ears. We have to work together on all fronts; social, political, scientific and economic. We have to rethink our basic belief systems. We are too invested to do so, but just for starters.
1. free abortions, birth control and education.
2. phase in 100% private fee and dividend carbon tax over 10 years with no share for governments-corporations.
3. 100% private electronic carbon tax dividend deposits in a new world currency to end-run national hegemonies to unify regulatory structures.
4. tie local organic food to new world currency to circumvent GM foods and reduce meat consumption by carbon taxing meat.
5. next generation nuclear power to clean up nuclear waste.
6. clean up green power.
7. stop fucking the dog and end intellectual property rights and patents.
8. kill the god damned MIC, legalize drugs and suicide.
9. use media to unite, not divide.
0. make fewer simple laws worldwide, not national bullshit gobblygook.
You sir are 100% incorrect. An electric mine is very possible. I should know, I'm a mining engineer.
The single largest mining power consumer is a mill, not the mine itself. Mills often have big substations outside them because powering a series of 10,000 kW ball mills and crushers isn't something you do with diesel power. That would be dumb and expensive, but mostly dumb.
Then you have haul trucks. Haul trucks are big bad monsters trucks, which are typically diesel-electric like a typical train locomotive. The biggest have over 4000 HP, usually in the form of several 20+L diesel engines. Mining engineers like diesel haul trucks because they're portable and big. That's about it.
To run that big truck off an overhead catenary is possible right now, just like a monster sized version of trolley bus. It would allow the trucks to have a higher output, be faster and be much more efficient. It's just not a common practice yet.
4000 HP gets those trucks up to about walking pace on the uphill portion of their drive. If haul trucks are like trains at all, then the the catenary should be able to provide much more power than any onboard diesel, like 10000+ HP. Speeding up trucks makes mining engineers happy because then you need a smaller fleet. This will happen eventually.
The most likely version of this would to be installed would be a big trolley assist on the main pit haul road. The trucks driving around the flat pit bottom run of their diesel engines so you don't need caternary everywhere, the ones driving up and down the hill have the catenary provide the majority of the power. The trucks descending the hill send power from their regen brakes to the haul trucks ascending the hill back through the catenary. Grid electricity tops off the remainder. Using batteries may also be the stopgap for the low power sections of a trip.
All you need is some certainty about the shape of your open pit.
Nobody likes to have a big piece of infrastructure accidentally built on your next ore deposit to be mined. In many cases the entire system can also be substituted for a conveyor and in pit crusher, which are also electric powered.
Next big power consumer are the shovels. As they used to say in the Yukon, everyone's lights dim when the Faro shovel fires up. They're already electric. Surpise! The biggest shovels are all electric, only the little and/or cheap ones are diesel powered, because they tend to move around a lot more. They could be electric, they would just have to move the power lines a bit more.
Next big power users are drills. Big drills are hydraulic machines, past the power pack they're entirely agnostic. Some are electrically powered already. Some are diesel. Little drills are air powered. Air compressors can push air a long way. In underground mines this means that the compressor is often on surface and run by an electric motor.
Light vehicles as were learning can also be powered by battery. As I've learned with my Chevy Volt, they're often preferable and if you're in mining you're actually kind of supporting other miners more than a ICE car.
Exploration without fossil fuels would be a bit harder, but the impacts are tiny in comparison. Biodiesel maybe?
Pt. 2 --------
Most mines are BIG customers for power producers, so they almost all have grid connections unless they're really far out. The ones that aren't grid connected generally have to make their own power station and provide their own fuel.
Mines in the NWT for example tend to truck most of their diesel in on ice roads. Other than that they're flying it in on planes. Not cheap. Power there is probably near $0.80/kWh. They also don't know if their roads will allow all their diesel to arrive in a given year, hence flying diesel in on planes when things go bad.
Those mines have huge incentive to provide onsite renewable generation because getting fuel is so hard. Wind turbines to offset diesel use will have much shorter payback in such situations and provide certainty that the mine will be able to function with less than full fuel reserves. Using electrified equipment in such cases would also be a logical conclusion.
Underground mines also like electrical equipment because of ventilation requirement, power density and torque. Things like TBMs are all electrically driven, and would be very difficult to power otherwise. It would be extremely hard to ventilate a 25,000 HP diesel engine even if you could fabricate it, service it and make it reliable.
The hardest things to electrify are going to be airplanes. Storage for now is heavy. I'm not sure what we can do about that.
Anyways, regarding this Ozzie is pretty much wrong. Mining in BC today could already use 93% renewable energy for the vast majority of it's energy consumption. Just keep bumping up the carbon tax an we'll get there.
Great lucid posts on mining... As to airplane fuels they are high value (expensive) products and thus a primary focus of redesigning bacteria for their production.
Looking further ahead I can even imagine hybrid air transport with spray on solar coated fuselages directly connected to the fuselage which is actually one large molded battery. This flexible lithium battery design is already showing up in cell phones. Another long range option is hydrogen extracted from water via solar, either landbased or with OTEC machines ideally suited for hydrogen production...
Back when I was studying OTEC and bio energy with GAO there was this visionary guy named Bill Heronemous who proposed ocean based wind systems many poo pooped... Which are now a reality!
The future is still an open book and I like this one much more than the horrible dystopian one so in vogue with the doomerism promulgated by fossil fuel freeks actively trying to undermine these opportunities
Alex and I didn't discuss Ozzie's put down of electric vehicles very much because Ozzie did not discuss them in his Google talk. But I did find some critiques of Ozzie's EV views online:
http://www.evmyths.com/2013/02/3-evs-are-not-environmental-in-long-run.html
"When they calculated the materials that went into making electric motors for cars, they accidentally used a static electric motor (the sort of thing you’d use to drive a large milling machine or industrial lathe) instead of a small, compact motor that would be found in a Nissan Leaf or similar car. Their calculations were for a 1,000 kg motor, the motor in the Nissan Leaf weighs 53kg. As you can imagine, an error of this magnitude could skew the figures rather badly.“
Here’s another critique I found online:
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/18607-My-wife-is-beating-me-over-the-head-with-Ozzie-Zehner
Originally Posted by SherryBoschert
This [Ozzie's put down of EVs] is not a "report." It's an opinion piece. He did no original research to report on. He read widely and cherry-picked his references to others' research and opinions to form an opinion that he pitches in this article. Here are some of the most obvious problems that I see with his article:
1) He claims that "it's very difficult to find researchers who are looking at the environmental merits of electric cars with a disinterested eye." Not really. He conveniently ignores research by Argonne National Laboratory and the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Rocky Mountain Institute, among others. Why not talk to our public scientists about this?
2) His first two examples of studies that he says are critical of EVs give very short-term scenarios that would not be expected to make a huge difference. Richard Pike of the Royal Society of Chemistry says EVs would reduce UK carbon dioxide by just 2% given current electricity sources. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office says EV subsidies will provide little or no decrease in total gas use and greenhouse gas emissions over the next several years. Well, duh. Cleaning up the power grid amplifies the benefits of EVs but takes time, as does penetration of EVs in the marketplace.
3) He says, "The experts writing about them [EVs] all seem to be unquestioning car enthusiasts." Not. See #1.
4) He tries at one point to make renewable power sound dirtier than fossil-fuel power. Taking that preposterous statement at face value, is he proposing that we don't move away from fossil fuels to renewable power? Or that we use no power at all? Absurd.
5) One of the main studies he cites to make his argument is the National Academies study "Hidden Costs of Energy." But he omits a key sentence in that study's summary of its transportation section, where it says, "However, further legislative and economic initiatives to reduce emissions from the electricity grid could be expected to improve the relative damages from EVs substantially." Notice that it doesn't say technical initiative, it says legislative and economic initiatives. Translation: If our politicians act, EVs will be even cleaner.
6) Another key study he cites is the Norwegian study, but this too uses a short-range scenario, and he ignores the fact that they mainly looked at greenhouse gas emissions, and declared EVs beneficial. From the abstract: On the present European electricity mix, EVs result in a 10%-24% decrease in global warming potential with a car lifetime of 150,000 km (even better if the car is in use longer).
So, the studies he uses to support his argument can just as easily be used to argue against his point of view. The problem is, few people will take the time to read the original studies and form their own opinions.
I was going to write a long piece but essentially it will be like Robert Callaghan.
I don't agree with you Dan or vastman on so many points, so for example on just the mining have a look at this on youtube - min 15 really undoes your piece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFyTSiCXWEE
I have wasted too much of my time over the years arguing with corporate simulations/shills on forums. I now just look at this as an opportunity to vent my angst and frustration that the human race would go down this way...
So, go collect your corporate flamer check or just check out or just suck it all dry or just go down wining...
Livin' stuck, in the past, citing selective illustrations like Solindra, to continue plunging towards the ultimate abyse...it's a warped psychopathy which afflicts many vocal people.
I've spent my entire loooooong life going WTF, sucking in data, trying to sort out pathways... and NOTHING is simple... Nor is life ahead going to be a walk in the park... overconsumption/rape of all planetary resources assures that...However, there are MANY pathways, with branches unfolding every day, and we are at the NEXUS point in evolution...if we don't, we die.
I podcast half day of science and geo/political stuff nearly every day; over 30 plus science streams many other data streams, while I garden for a living... I consume and have absorbed visionary insites and analysis' probably long before you were born. The only thing standing in our way is people wanting to continue sucking the planet dry, milking the economy (hello, fossil whores out there), lazy loosers/doomers/idiots who cherry pick data to satisfy their delusions.
A myrid of pathways and opportunities await action...ranging from new agronomics, materials design, ocean farming...oh... it's quite endless... and in the face of planetary collapse, you, Robert, countless paid corporate fossil fuel shills and "super slick" preach helplessness, death, and we're fracked memes...
We aren't but reading garbage dumped over self fulfilling bullcrap which does NOTHING to shift our plunge over cliffs....often has me wishing I could just delete all such clones from this simulation...
Making it through this mess is going to be hard enough without garbage littering the many pathways. Sheeple, corporate cows...It will be a miracle getting through things with ur feedlot polluting the atmosphere with poison.
Excuse my english but these are serious times deserving serious actions not litter...
And, just in case you have a real point or are just a very frustrated human feeling there's no way out...
I often feel this way. Every climate/weather study/link/show I consume, many communications on such issues...C-Realm, Extraenvironmentalists, lots of progressive media... can be mind numbing.
Then I fill my mind with all the lastes amazing science, solar advances, biological insights, and new models of existance/understanding and I know this isn't a one way ride.
I write climate music... it's at tinyurl.com/vastman
Lots of we're Fracked if people don't wake up.... lots of "gotta change the rules".... lots of "we can save the world"...
A lot healthier and saner than wallowing towards the abyss with a sucker in your mouth...
wake up
The problem is the lack of democracy via the crony-capitalist plutarchy. And wage-slavery. And overcomplexity, etc.-- all interrelated. PV's, Nissan Leaf-Blowers and Toyota Priapuses (or is that priapi?), etc., are practically pointless and worse without real/pure/direct democracy, real ethics.
That's how civilizations collapse.
Greenwash-tech investors and CEO cronies, along with their governpimp symbionts can take their coercive, undemocratically-derived business-as-usual tech, as if the planet is theirs to do with as they please, and stick it where the sun doesn't shine. Pun intended too.