The Green Room

[TrailSeeker]

If you've ever worked in an office building even old-style buildings had awful and incompetently managed climate control. I can't imagine that you'd solve that problem with different tech.

The one thing that strikes me about this though, is that it's totally unnecessary.. Sure it saves a little bit of money (which no one will deny is a good thing) but it sacrifices a ton of comfort. The reason i say all this is unnecessary, is because this is like trying to save a drop of water in a massive aquarium. The majority of pollution and "non-green" related wastes is industrial. Things like cattle grazing, chopping down rainforest, and overfishing, just to name a few. I'm not saying it's not beneficial to try green technologies, but why should we demand employees pay the price with their quality of life vs. changing and enforcing new rules on the real culprits to environment change?

 

[TrailSeeker]

New bikes take a lot of raw materials to make. Did anyone see about Afghanistan's treasures of minerals such as lithium? China shares a boarder with Afghanistan next door. I like the idea of recycling as much as we can such a batteries or making new bikes from old ones instead of mining all those raw materials and filling up landfills.

The Taliban are sitting on $1 trillion worth of minerals the world desperately needs

The swift fall of Afghanistan to Taliban fighters has triggered a humanitarian crisis, with thousands trying to flee the country. It's also brought renewed focus on Afghanistan's vast untapped mineral wealth, resources that could transform its economic prospects if ever developed.

www.cnn.com

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One question I have - what actually causes batteries to die after say 10 years of operation? What i'm trying to figure out for say Lithium ion batteries: which of these reactions become irreversible? And would there be a way to salvage any of the chemical or material components used in these? If we could invite a cheap way of doing this - consumers would still need to buy new parts and new bikes - but we would reduce battery waste, which I hear is just baried underground somewhere (I don't have much information on this - I did find a link to a news article on this though)?

Millions of electric cars are coming. What happens to all the dead batteries?

Researchers urgently seek better ways to reuse spent cells

www.sciencemag.org

 

[john peck]

It is hard to imagine how our society or system would survive if there were tens of millions of permanently displaced people dumped out onto the streets.

That´s what like about you, Coffee, you´re even more of a cockeyed optimist than I. I ve made a plow
attachment to my bike trailer which can also haul 2 cu.ft. of water. Now I just need 200 sq. ft, of surplus
camo net to shade the orchard I´ll plant in the Black Rock Desert. (what do ya mean if?. By now there
are already a million U.S. climate refugees.)

 

[john peck]

One question I have - what actually causes batteries to die after say 10 years of operation? What i'm trying to figure out for say Lithium ion batteries: which of these reactions become irreversible? And would there be a way to salvage any of the chemical or material components used in these? If we could invite a cheap way of doing this - consumers would still need to buy new parts and new bikes - but we would reduce battery waste, which I hear is just baried underground somewhere (I don't have much information on this - I did find a link to a news article on this though)?

Millions of electric cars are coming. What happens to all the dead batteries?

Researchers urgently seek better ways to reuse spent cells

www.sciencemag.org

Millions of electric cars coming that no one can afford without indenturing themselves for years to come that is.
They´ll still have a huge carbon footprint before ever hitting the road. What is needed is lightweight, affordable
vehicles suitable as grocery getters, etc. What we know as cars will still create rush hour gridlock, & still
require devoting 20,30% of your labor & income to maintain, insure, & license. I´ll stick with my 35 year old
van for occasional need of heavy hauling. I only used it for about 400 miles in 2020. 95% of the time it´s
just a mobile storage shed good for a 50 mile bulk shopping trip every 6 weeks. If I want to travel, I have up
to 55ah, & easily a 180 mi. range with my bike & trailer at so little cost that I can afford more enjoyable
activities. No holiday road stress at 70 mph on the interstate for me; I can take as much time as I like on
pleasant back roads & country lanes. It´s not how far you can go; It´s how much you enjoy getting there.
I can still put it on a train if I want.

P.S. Amtrak has electric outlets for each pair of seats, so you can charge batteries while you enjoy
the passing scenery.

 

[Mulezen]

Electric travel is in its infancy but progressing extremely fast. This article on battery development was more detailed on MIT’s site but behind a paywall. https://newatlas.com/science/lithium-metal-ev-battery-benchmark-density-stability/

 

[PedalUma]

what actually causes batteries to die

Ions move from one side of a battery to the other. Discharge moves them one way, Charging moves them back. But this is not perfect. Some become stuck each time at one end or the other. This accumulation of less than one-half of one-tenth of a percent prevents the others from running back and forth between the wickets. It creates lithium plaque.

 

[john peck]

That´s what like about you, Coffee, you´re even more of a cockeyed optimist than I. I ve made a plow
attachment to my bike trailer which can also haul 2 cu.ft. of water. Now I just need 200 sq. ft, of surplus
camo net to shade the orchard I´ll plant in the Black Rock Desert. (what do ya mean if?. By now there
are already a million U.S. climate refugees.)

Ya know that idea might not be so crazy. Think if everyone showed up with something to create shade
and foster new grow at Burning Man, A remarkable thing might happen.

 

[Art Deco]

More happy news from the BBC. At least the media is starting to put dollar values on this stuff now since that's all the math the powers that be will pay attention to.

Climate change: Big increase in weather disasters over the past five decades

Floods, storms and extreme events increase five-fold but the number of people dying in them fell.

www.bbc.com

 

[Art Deco]

I won't link to the details since the Times is paywalled, and you can easily find coverage of the hurricanes and floods, but this quote is right on.
Adapting to climate change in the United States arguably comes down to a brutal decision: When to build back, and when to help move people away from threats that are only getting worse.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

I won't link to the details since the Times is paywalled, and you can easily find coverage of the hurricanes and floods, but this quote is right on.
Adapting to climate change in the United States arguably comes down to a brutal decision: When to build back, and when to help move people away from threats that are only getting worse.

Moving people won't work, at least it won't work on the scale we'd probably need to do for it to do any good.

There are still people homeless from the 2018 fires around Paradise, CA.

Also, if displaced people move to safer locations, many of those safe locations will become much less pleasant places to live under the crush of refugees. Better to figure out some way to stop or at least slow down the looming catastrophe.

 

[Art Deco]

Moving people won't work, at least it won't work on the scale we'd probably need to do for it to do any good.

There are still people homeless from the 2018 fires around Paradise, CA.

Also, if displaced people move to safer locations, many of those safe locations will become much less pleasant places to live under the crush of refugees. Better to figure out some way to stop or at least slow down the looming catastrophe.

I absolutely agree, but I think it's too late for prevention now. I hope I'm wrong though.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

I absolutely agree, but I think it's too late for prevention now. I hope I'm wrong though.

Probably not for a lot of things.

In the specific case of sea-level rise, that is probably (literally) baked in. But we could probably adjust the timeline from decades to centuries. Which would give us much more time to adapt without as much disruption.

A rapid sea-level rise event would displace around 90 percent of the world's population, and also destroy a lot of the infrastructure we use to move food around. Having a huge displaced population and not enough food seems like a sure fire formula for a Black Death-scale die off.

 

[Art Deco]

Probably not for a lot of things.

In the specific case of sea-level rise, that is probably (literally) baked in. But we could probably adjust the timeline from decades to centuries. Which would give us much more time to adapt without as much disruption.

A rapid sea-level rise event would displace around 90 percent of the world's population, and also destroy a lot of the infrastructure we use to move food around. Having a huge displaced population and not enough food seems like a sure fire formula for a Black Death-scale die off.

Doesn't need to be a big rise quickly to make the small coastal towns uninsurable and uninhabitable. Annual hurricanes and floods (or annual wildfires and droughts in your side of the country) will force people out of the towns, and into the cities. I am so sorry.
As far as food shortages, California crop failures are already here, and a midwestern severe drought is expected... this is the weather you and I will probably get. .

 

[john peck]

Moving people won't work,

Don´t sent ´em here.;we´re good. Let ´em modify their own environ to meet the threats.

 

[tomjasz]

Fatalism isn’t my general view, but I’m actually greatful for my years. I’m thinking that this close to a dirt nap might rescue me from the coming catastrophe. I am so sad to think about what 20 somethings might be facing. 50 years ago at Dewey Canyon III, I was convinced and full of hope thinking we’d turned the corner. Oops.

 

[Art Deco]

Fatalism isn’t my general view, but I’m actually greatful for my years. I’m thinking that this close to a dirt nap might rescue me from the coming catastrophe. I am so sad to think about what 20 somethings might be facing. 50 years ago at Dewey Canyon III, I was convinced and full of hope thinking we’d turned the corner. Oops.

@tomjasz I am not not really sure what Fatalism actually entails. In the short run I rather expect bad news, so I am delighted when the 'worst case scenario' doesn't happen ... and it usually doesn't. Think of the thousands of "end of the world" predictions that didn’t happen ...

In the longer run, we belong to an amazing species that has done the seemingly impossible so many times that I believe we will do it again (and again), once we finally quit fighting each other, own a problem, and decide to solve it.

But D@*m, we are cutting it close with the fossil fuels/climate change/capitalism equation. We can modify weather, control our population, and provide a decent life for all if enough of us care to do so.

 

[john peck]

Fatalism isn’t my general view, but I’m actually greatful for my years. I’m thinking that this close to a dirt nap might rescue me from the coming catastrophe. I am so sad to think about what 20 somethings might be facing. 50 years ago at Dewey Canyon III, I was convinced and full of hope thinking we’d turned the corner. Oops.

The thought of becoming a bedridden invalid withering slowly away in some damn home terrifies me.
I use to think of living to 100, but even in good health, that prospect ain´t so rosy unless we get a
handle on climate. If not, well, any day is a good day to die. We reached a point where simply adapting
may be the only option, but hope remains to change devastation into paradise. What has been destroyed
can be rebuilt better than before.

 

[Art Deco]

One more piece of technology that we are really going to need is finally moving from possibility to production. Direct from the air carbon capture.

World's largest direct air capture plant starts absorbing CO2 in Iceland

An ambitious startup looking to eat into the world's carbon emissions has just taken its biggest bite yet, flicking the switch on the largest direct air capture and CO2 storage plant on the planet. Climework's latest facility is designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and store it away…

newatlas.com

 

[Art Deco]

And a link from the same article to something new ...

World's first "negative emission" power plant turns CO2 into stone

After opening the world's first commercial Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant designed to pull CO2 out of the air, Swiss company Climeworks is now joining forces with a geothermal power plant in Iceland to create the world's first "negative emission" power plant.

newatlas.com

 

[Sierratim]

In the interests of 'saving' power, i.e. reducing consumption at peak times, California relys on 'rolling black outs' where select areas are just disconnected from the grid. Our business has experienced a number of these shut offs this year. Luckily we bit the bullet a few years ago and installed a propane powered auto-start generator that can power the entire business so no business interruptions nor stranded tenants on the property. Our nearest competitor has done the same thing, as we have at our home. These are all propane powered.

The elec utility, PG&E has done the same thing at a number of locations around the area to assure uninterrupted power to important services; traffic lights at crowded intersections, elder care homes, etc. These are generally powered with diesel fuel. I rode by one of these installations earlier where 3 or 4 large cargo trailers containing the generators were pulled into an existing switch yard across from a couple of residential apartment complexes. Surprisingly noisey and more than just a wiff of diesel in the air.

So, I need to ask. Wouldn't it make more sense for California to be less restrictive about new generating facilites than have homes, businesses, and the elec utility rely on higher polluting generators to keep the lights on? On top of this CA has the highest electricity rates in the country. Makes me wonder how realistic the plans are for for carbon reduction thought electrified vehicles...