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Dealing with Climate Change & Justice
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Posted 2 years ago #
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New nuclear power plants will not be allowed in Scotland.
Does Ratcliffe (and Guardian) not know this?Posted 2 years ago # -
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Huge subsidies for US-based low-carbon manufacturers are posing big problems for EU leaders
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Posted 2 years ago # -
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Cabbages, cauliflower and broccoli that were supposed to be ready later in December or in January are ready to harvest now, with some having grown to huge sizes because of the exceptionally mild autumn.
Farmers who have been growing vegetables for decades say they have never seen anything like this before, and that they have had to “tear up” their sowing and harvesting timelines due to the unpredictable climate.
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Posted 2 years ago # -
Posted 2 years ago #
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UK’s first new coalmine for 30 years gets go-ahead in Cumbria
Michael Gove greenlights £165m project that will produce estimated 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year
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Posted 2 years ago # -
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Overall this committee meeting was a challenging one. (As usual) I raised concerns of access whenever I could and felt it was necessary, and Chas fought for clarity on issues from active travel, affordable housing and more
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https://mobile.twitter.com/kayleighfoneill/status/1600600391057608728
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I'm really looking forward to stronger guidance coming in that will help us build affordable homes for those who need it and meet the climate/car reduction targets that we sorely need
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https://mobile.twitter.com/KayleighFONeill/status/1600600394610233344
Posted 2 years ago # -
Austria has a similar system: https://www.euractiv.com/section/railways/news/austrias-trains-take-over-short-haul-flight-route/
Basically airlines aren't allowed to operate between cities which are less than three hours apart by train - came out of a Government bailout of Austrian Airlines, and I'm not sure how it applies to other companies.
Posted 2 years ago # -
A pretty comprehensive and damming report on Hydrogen:
https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-the-unbearable-lightness-of-hydrogen/
Conclusion:
The only way to move hydrogen economically is as a gas, by pipeline. Forget liquid hydrogen: it will struggle to find any role in the future energy or transport systems because of its poor volumetric energy density and difficulties with handling. It will have no role at all as a traded commodity.
Ammonia will be traded and transported, primarily for use in fertilizer production, plus as a shipping fuel. It will not be imported to power bulk power generation, but will be imported and stored to deliver long-duration storage. Some LOHC might also be imported, but only where it is stored for resilience purposes.
Clean methanol will be made near to sources of cheap clean hydrogen and some of it will be shipped around the world for use as a chemical feedstock. E-fuels – whether methanol, petrol, diesel or kerosene equivalents – will not be shipped around the world in meaningful volumes because their cost will severely limit their uptake, with the possible exception of aviation.
Totting up the various future hydrogen trade flows covered here, it is clear that the Hydrogen Council/McKinsey figures of 660 million tonnes of clean hydrogen production and 400 million tonnes of long-distance transportation are out by a factor of at least three. In addition, given that China and India have only pledged net zero by 2060 and 2070 respectively, such flows that do materialize will take decades beyond 2050.
The implications reach far beyond the question of international trade in hydrogen and its derivatives. The prohibitive cost of long-distance imports means that energy-intensive industries will inevitably migrate to regions with cheap clean energy. It is inconceivable for any country to import iron ore from Australia or Brazil, hydrogen from Australia, the Gulf, Canada or Africa, and make steel at a globally competitive cost. Magical thinking will be no defense against de-industrialization.
Finally, it is worth noting that none of this calls into question the fact that clean hydrogen will be required to decarbonize certain sectors, which will eventually create more than 100 million tonnes per year of demand. Just as railway mania left the world with railways, electricity mania left the world with power networks, and the dot-com bubble left the world with broadband fiber, so hydrogen mania will leave the world with a lot of clean hydrogen.
The worry is that, along the way, we are going to waste huge amounts of money on the wrong use cases for hydrogen and the wrong infrastructure in the wrong places. Worse than wasting money, we will also be wasting time – and that is the one thing we don’t have. Let’s be smart.
Posted 2 years ago # -
“The worry is that, along the way, we are going to waste huge amounts of money on the wrong use cases for hydrogen and the wrong infrastructure in the wrong places. Worse than wasting money, we will also be wasting time – and that is the one thing we don’t have. Let’s be smart.“
Yes
History doesn’t encourage optimism
Latest BIG NEWS is fusion.
No one is pretending useable results for decades.
But can it EVER be a thing??
Posted 2 years ago # -
The leaders of this country are so stupid, they really are...
Friends of the Earth Scotland in June this year was more sceptial. It found that hydrogen has low efficiency compared with other sources, such as electrification, while “huge amounts” of renewable energy are required to produce it.
It also highlighted that heat pumps are 168-342 per cent more efficient than hydrogen boilers.
£25 billion would surely insulate every house in Scotland to passive-house standards and have left over change for heat-pump grants
Posted 2 years ago # -
“The leaders of this country are so stupid, they really are“
Yes, but
They generally don’t make this stuff up.
They are ‘advised’ by civil servants and/or lobbyists.
Some civil servants are also, presumably talking to ‘experts’ and those with commercial and other interests.
FOES and others will also variously count as experts and lobbyists.
The general question is why politicians and advisers too often come to bad decisions.
One reason is clearly the difficulty of seeing any sort of coherent ‘overview’.
This is not helped by the, possibly inevitable, divisions into ministries and departments with their own priorities, responsibilities and budgets.
In addition there is (apparently) a continual demand/expectation for a ‘new fix’ on the basis that it might be better than tried and tested options.
Posted 2 years ago # -
This is more or less what I was thinking in last post
https://scottishcommunityalliance.org.uk/brief/14th-december-2022/
Posted 2 years ago #
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