Climate change. | Vital Football

Climate change.

Old Red Fart

Vital Champions League
I'm having a job to get my head round Brexit so I'll get on to another subject that's bothering me, perhaps even more so. Your summer looks as though it's going to break records, forest fires are ravaging parts of Greece, the death toll mounts in Japan under record breaking heat, a disastrous drought covers much of Australia, and the Great Barrier Reef is on life support. On top of this it looks as though the Ice Caps are melting.
This is not how it used to be when I was a lad. And what's being done about this, precious little.

I'm alright though Jack,it won't bother me.
 
Crikey, ORF. I don't have time for this simultaneously! Suffice to say, we're screwing the planet on a way that should make people weep. There is a shameful dereliction of duty by those who should know better but are only in it for the short term. Climate science denial is worse than anything because it is literally an existential threat.
It is already killing people and will continue to do so with greater ferocity. Many other species have been driven to extinction; one day it will catch up with us and that day will approach sooner rather than later if we continue like this.

Resist. Protest.
 
I don't suppose people will bother until London, the South Coast & East Anglia all go under water as they are forced to do as the melting ice caps raises the sea level as it is doing on the Florida Keys where high tides are now penetrating homes. Nottingham in the Vale of Trent instead of importing sand on to the Square every year will become a real seaside resort.

_________________________________________________UK%20over%2080mts.jpg
 
Last edited:
The big problem is that Brexit is here and now and directly related to UK and EU and must be sorted one way or another while climate change isn't directly affecting most countries yet.
Over here we are getting to be more aware as some of the islands in the South Pacific are already starting to feel the pinch and residents will have to be moved off before too much longer. And they will have to go somewhere, looks like another immigrant problem looming up.

itto, being retired gives me more time to reflect on things but unfortunately doesn't seem to throw up much in the way of solutions !

RB, don't know how you dream these things up but they do work well.

:thumbup:
 
Crikey, ORF. I don't have time for this simultaneously! Suffice to say, we're screwing the planet on a way that should make people weep. There is a shameful dereliction of duty by those who should know better but are only in it for the short term. Climate science denial is worse than anything because it is literally an existential threat.
It is already killing people and will continue to do so with greater ferocity. Many other species have been driven to extinction; one day it will catch up with us and that day will approach sooner rather than later if we continue like this.

Resist. Protest.

The problem, as someone once said, is that governments get about 5 years. As a general rule they can do the essentials for two to three years, but then try to give everyone what they want for a couple of years to get re-elected. David Attenborough's Blue Planet has done more for reducing plastics than all the previous government policies.

Not sure what the answer is on global warming though. The more developed world can hardly turn round to China and India and tell them they can't develop, but it would help if technological advances could help them (and the rest of us) cut out the environmentally unfriendly bits. Might help if certain world leaders actually believed global warming is a real thing!
 
ORF, climate change is real, We all know that to be the case, but it’s not as straightforward as some of the scientists would have people believe.
There’s always an agenda is’nt there?

The world is currently going through a natural warming period, of that there is no doubt. This is being made worse as a result of all the pollution and waste dumped by man over the last century or so, combined with destruction of natural habitats.
It will need all these aspects to be addressed, and will take many years before the warming trends are reversed, but I do believe there is a desire to move forward and hopefully improve things.

Having worked in mining and the power industry for nearly 40 years, I have seen first hand the advance in technologies to improve efficiencies and reduce emissions caused by providing energy. It is astounding what has been achieved both here in the UK and worldwide and the work continues. Traditional technologies still have their place, but things are changing.

At the same time there is much work being done on developing alternative ‘clean’ technologies and smart transmission grids.
Despite most governments not having a clue on the energy sector, through the various ‘agreements’ made worldwide they have given a platform for this work to continue, which it is doing and rapidly expanding. Being involved in high tech renewables is major business these days. Even in the US who very quietly are providing massive incentives for research and development, that budget just keeps on increasing even with the current administration.

The next aspect is persuading the general public to live differently, be more thoughtful in how they use energy, reduce all waste, respect the natural world.

There are challenges which need to be addressed, thankfully these issues are known and are subject to real research.

Building cooling is one such challenge.
Currently the US uses more energy on building cooling alone than the whole continent of Africa uses in total. By 2020, China will be using more energy than the US......

At current trends, by 2050, world cooling energy requirements will be more than the combined energy demand of the US, Europe and Japan today.
The greater use of technology is actually increasing this cooling demand. Even now, the energy cooling demands for data centers around the world exceeds the power requirement of Portugal.

My company has spent the last 3 years developing high efficiency cooling systems. Right now the technology is showing at least a 30% reduction in energy consumption compared to current equipment. With the new developments in the pipeline the energy reductions are closer to 60%.
We hope that within 5 years, we can give the option of domestic cooling being an off grid device.
It won’t be anymore expensive than current systems either.
There are a number of companies involved in developing their own systems, so whether it’s our equipment or others, the use of higher efficiency cooling equipment will become the norm.

The same development is happening on just about anything you can think of, domestically, in industry and in transport.

I do think mankind has woken upto the fact that we need dramatic change to preserve our planet, and quite honestly I do believe it is being embraced it’s just unfortunate that the results of these efforts probably won’t be felt in my lifetime.

Outside of the political shenanigans it is a very exciting time for tech.
 
It's Winter still here and 5 fire engines have just gone down the road to attend a bush fire which is sending out a load of smoke. And this is not out in the sticks, it's in the Sydney Metropolitan area.
The NSW Rural Fire Service has just brought forward the official date for the start of the bush fire season by 2 months, starting August 1 instead of Oct 1. Can't ever remember this happening before and I had 40 years of volunteer fire fighting work in years gone by.
Our NSW Govt has also announced several million dollars worth of aid to our farmers who have no feed for their stock and who have run out of cash to pay for it in any case.
Australia has a very serious nation wide problem due to lack of rain.
and in the UK it looks as though you have record high temperatures coming up this week.
There are world wide signs that things are changing and yet our apology for a Federal Govt has just OKed a vast Indian owned coal mine in Qld.
Here in Oz on a per capita basis we are the worst offenders in the world although as a nation we don't offend as we're not big enough.

feco, not sure I agree with you on the change being embraced bit, it may be on a personal level but it's going to be governments that will have to get it properly moving.
 
ORF, undoubtedly the climate has got warmer, but there is a proportion of this down to natural events. Back in Victorian times the Thames in London would freeze up in winter, which would suggest that temperatures where colder then. In the grand scheme of things it’s not too long ago.
Dip back even further in time, there is evidence that the Romans grew grapes as far north as Hadrian’s Wall on the England Scotland border, suggesting that it must have been pretty warm then. I doubt you could do that even now.

It’s unfortunate but even now, we still have to generate electricity by fossil fuels. It’s is the only source able to give a reliable back up to the grid, whilst providing the balance to allow for the fluctuating supply you get with solar and wind.
Without coal, oil or gas generation, you can’t use solar or wind, it’s as simple as that.
That’s now, in 10 years that will definitely not be the case as the tech is being developed to provide alternative electricity storage and smart grids. Tesla have already proven what can be done right there in Aus.

Coal generation is nothing like as dirty as it was. All new build stations, and many of the older ones have been retrofitted with things like FGD plants which remove around 98% of the sulphuric dioxide produced. The byproduct is gypsum used in house building, so cleaner emissions and a building product from the waste.
Many other stations have other technologies to reduce or remove the other nasty stuff.

Here in the UK we developed our biggest coal fired station Drax, to run on waste wood instead.
The US paper industry left a large amount of waste wood behind that rotted in the ground producing methane, a greenhouse gas 4 times more damaging than carbon dioxide.
The waste is converted into pellets and then shipped to the UK for burning. As new trees have to be planted to replace those chopped down, the process is essentially carbon neutral, albeit over the period life of the tree say 30 years.
The process is also removing a large source of methane.

The next stage for Drax is to make carbon capture a reality, if they do that, and they are close, then they will produce 7% of the UK power totally carbon free.

The technologies are extremely transferable, they can be used anywhere, and will get us through the hump until total renewable energy generation, storage and smart grids are commercially developed.

As Lienking points out, there is no way a government will get actively involved in things like this, these projects generally take longer than a parliament anyway, so it’s far to long term for politicians.
This will be market led.

That’s not unique, look at the space industry. NASA have paid lip service to developing a new vehicle since the Shuttle retired.
Along came the privateers in SpaceX and Blue Origin, and all of a sudden the US government is backing NASA to develop it SLS rocket with unprecedented funding.
Things is SpaceX Falcon Heavy can lift more load than SLS, is about a third of the cost, and is extremely reusable. Crucially it has already flown.....remember Starman earlier this year? And SLS is still at least a year away. There won’t be many launches for the SLS.

Don’t expect governments or their agencies to do anything other than make a mess.
If there is money to be made, commercial organizations will get involved, and there is huge money to be made in cleaning the planet up and developing high efficiency clean equipment.

It’s a good industry to be in these days.
 
Well done feco, I've learned more in 5 minutes than I thought possible. Got to go at the moment but wi ll reply a bit later.

Thanks.
 
I imagine a big growth in Nuclear power plants, despite all the rhetoric i dont see how its possible to even convert cars to natural energy, we needed to invest 30 years ago. More of the same in UK I imagine, especially if leaving EU laws. Sso long as London can keep spending billions raising its flood defences then Britain wont care, it doesn't care now, its way behind EU standards in pollution on many fronts.

Any eye opener seeing Uk suffer so bad with just a month of heat tho. Its not rained here for months and I imagine another cple so imagine if its like here in ten years time.

A shame that with some good posts above there is no mention of hemp at all, which could have massive implications, not just in fuel, but textiles, clearing land, removing plastics, clean medicines the lot. Still not taught in schools I take it
 
paz, we have a very small nuclear plant just outside Sydney but it's only used for medical purposes. No mention of any more, not surprising after a succession of weak Govts.

feco,I agree about the climate changes over the last few hundred years although my neighbour is still insistent that we can do nothing to help. It's pretty obvious too that fossil fuels must still used, especially over here as we don't seem to be making progress with anything else. It's not that our Govt doesn't talk about it it's more that they don't actually do anything. And I still think that Govts should be in on the act, along with private enterprise especially over here, we're a small nation spread about like confetti and getting cash for starting up anything is not easy.
And for getting a commercial outfit in here to help won't be simple either as our population is small looking at world figures.

Have you thought about emigrating ?
 
Unfortunately we missed the boat with the nuclear sites many years ago.
Britain designed the best plants in the world with the AGR (Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors) machines.
They have provided close to 40 years reliable and safe service. For whatever reason, the UK Government abandoned the programme and bought into the US PWR (pressurized water reactors). They only built one.

Fast forward to today, the only design licensed to be built in the UK is the French EPR design, and evolution of the PWR.
The initial build in Normandy and Finland commenced in 2004, and where supposed to be completed as 48 month programmes. Neither have been completed yet, and are at least another year away.
2 further plants of this design where started in China in 2009, the first one came on load last month, 5 years behind schedule. The second unit will be live in 2019. The next few months will show if the EPR will actually work.

For the UK, nuclear is not really an option. Hinkley C is the only one in “construction” and is at least 10 years from completion. That’s if it happens at all.
If it does come on line, it will replace about half of the nuclear capacity lost during its construction.

Nuclear is a great base load generator, but is pretty useless for load balancing. In other words it couldn’t cope with such things as the power surge seen during events.....like half time in the FA Cup Final.
It also cannot support renewables like wind or solar which are variable generators by their very design.
For Britain, we should be looking at biomass to supplement what we have giving time for battery storage and smart grids to be developed.
For the cost of two new gas stations we could provide about 15% of the UK energy needs, all using waste wood/biomass, (including hemp) and providing a significant amount of carbon neutral power. Two new gas stations would provide about 3% of the countries energy needs. Converting all the remains coal sites to biomass would take 24 months, about 36 months to build the gas stations.
It’s should be pretty obvious to governments what needs to be done, god knows I’ve done enough presentations and meetings with them. Sadly nothing will come of it, the timescale for energy is way to long for a government to care, they likely won’t be around anyway.

ORF, I may just be emigrating soon, sometime in the next 8 months......unless things change. It will only be over The Channel though.....Brittany will do me fine, I’m not prepared to give up my EU passport and driving license!!
 
hemp biomass. I am already getting more requests for it, actually from USA typically
 
Sounds as though nuclear is not part of the answer and it's going to be a mixture of things that fills the bill, and it's not going to happen over night either.
There appears to be some progress with a setup in South Australia involving grids and batteries, at least I think that was it . I believe it's just been completed by an American fellow who was insistent that if he couldn't finish it in time he wouldn't charge anything. Well I've read somewhere that it's completed on time but that's all I know,might ring your bell though.
Last year we had a really bad lot of storms in that state resulting in a loss of power that must have been almost state wide and of course it's put the fear of God into the rest of us,on top of that our electricity is just about the most expensive in the civilized world. We are not a happy lot.

I wonder how many folk are like you with their thinking on living in the EU in the future.
 
hemp biomass. I am already getting more requests for it, actually from USA typically

Drax has 4 massive domes, I think they can take around 325k tonnes each. The idea is they can have wood, olive husks, waste wood, straw, all in different areas and blend the fuels for burning as required. No reason they couldn’t use hemp instead of one of the others.
Only issue is they need 2200 tonnes/hr 24 hours a day.......
 
ORF, Nuclear has a future.....when they get a suitable design. That’s the hard bit!!

The battery you refer to was Elon Musk’s Tesla system. The same Elon Musk who owns SpaceX.......

This is what I mean about commercial companies stepping in rather than governments. A government would never have agreed this alone.
Looks like the battery is making its owners some big money......what it doesn’t say in the article is that they also get paid to take the excess power off of the grid, basically being paid to recharge the battery.

Needless to say it only lasts a few minutes at full load discharge, so is more of a complementary device to the existing coal and wind generation. It does prove the concept though and is great starting place moving forward.

https://www.sciencealert.com/south-australia-tesla-battery-earns-million-neoen-company
 
The government are signing deals with Hitachi and the Japanese government as we speak for several new nuclear plants.
 
The government are signing deals with Hitachi and the Japanese government as we speak for several new nuclear plants.

Horizon have had a planning application accepted, now it moves forward to the full planning procedure. As the proposed sites are Wylfa and Oldbury, both former nuclear stations, I cannot see that being a problem.
However Hitachi still do not have a license from the Nuclear Inspectorate to build a reactor in the UK, so irrespective of the planning, the plant can’t be built as things stand.
I cannot think of a reason why they wouldn’t get one, but it won’t be a quick process.
Commercially it’s difficult to justify the build cost at the moment, nor the strike price that will be required to make it viable.
I’m sure someone will try.....
 
Feco, I respect your informed posts on the industry but please don't fall into saying we are in a period of natural warming. Even if you then go on to say we are exacerbating it. It undermines the importance of the message we need to convey. People are readily and gratefully reassured by that kind of statement and that is the last thing we need. Instead we need anger and intense pressure on pathetic, ignorant, negligent, short termism by governments across the world.
Also, we were in a period of *cooling* until the industrial revolution spewed forth greenhouse gases...

In any case, while temperatures have been both cooler and hotter in the past, the current changes are rapid, dramatic and our fault. At this rate, these changes will lead to an irreversible (by us) tipping point that could doom humanity entirely.

Temperatures have rarely changed so fast. On the occasions it has, we are talking meteors, supervolcanoes and mass extinctions. We are already experiencing another mass extinction right now. Talking about skating on the Thames does nothing to rectify this.
I urge everyone reading this to write to their MP to ask what they personally are doing about the situation. To do nothing is to set sail for oblivion.
 
Feco, I respect your informed posts on the industry but please don't fall into saying we are in a period of natural warming. Even if you then go on to say we are exacerbating it. It undermines the importance of the message we need to convey. People are readily and gratefully reassured by that kind of statement and that is the last thing we need. Instead we need anger and intense pressure on pathetic, ignorant, negligent, short termism by governments across the world.
Also, we were in a period of *cooling* until the industrial revolution spewed forth greenhouse gases...

In any case, while temperatures have been both cooler and hotter in the past, the current changes are rapid, dramatic and our fault. At this rate, these changes will lead to an irreversible (by us) tipping point that could doom humanity entirely.

Temperatures have rarely changed so fast. On the occasions it has, we are talking meteors, supervolcanoes and mass extinctions. We are already experiencing another mass extinction right now. Talking about skating on the Thames does nothing to rectify this.
I urge everyone reading this to write to their MP to ask what they personally are doing about the situation. To do nothing is to set sail for oblivion.

Governments will not do anything.....you have explained the reason yourself.
We have done presentations etc in Westminster, along with many others to no avail.
This is what Governments do.......thanks George!!

https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/projects/white-rose-ccs-project

There is so much misinformation on Global Warming from both sides, that makes debate and rational argument impossible. There is a problem, that is not fully understood, but it needs to be tackled.

Whatever, mankind has a morale obligation to minimize its footprint on our planet, after all we only share it.
For that we need to educate people on how to live more simply, efficiently and cleaner. That lead will not come from Government, it will come from generating the desire within the general public to make a change.
When we start doing that, we will have a major impact on improving our environment.

One thing is for sure, the way we live in the future will be vastly different to the way we live now.....maybe Walt Disney’s original concept for EPCOT wasn’t far from the mark.....