One item this didn’t mention, where I see potential: Solar panels are less efficient when they are very warm, and this is a problem especially with rooftop solar. From a heat transfer perspective, the highest heat transfer coefficients occur with a phase change, like evaporating water. I’m optimistic this could also be used to increase the efficiency of solar panel by removing heat so they can operate at cooler temperatures.
3 Likes
Here’s another one:
3 Likes
I know so very little about how these things work, exactly, but this seems pretty dang cool.
Kicking off the new term with some big climate hope! The info below is courtesy of Climate FWD’s newsletter (New York Times):
This afternoon the new president of the United States, Joe Biden, will start signing a raft of executive orders to undo President Trump’s legacy, including on climate. In addition to rejoining the Paris Agreement, Mr. Biden intends to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit in his first hours in office, people close to the new administration have said.
In the following days, Mr. Biden will issue a series of executive orders that start the process of rolling back some of the Trump administration’s significant environmental decisions — like restricting the science that can be used to create new air and water protections — and lay the groundwork for ambitious new policies, people with knowledge of the team’s plans said.
Fossil fuel advocates said they have been surprised by the intensity of the Biden team’s focus on climate change. “I underestimated the level of seriousness that these guys had about this,” said one.
5 Likes
I’m going to try and resurrect this thread, because articles like this:
have really been depressing me, and I need some hope. I also feel depressed about any actions I could take making much of a difference.
This one:
feels more optimistic to me, but acknowledges we still have a long ways to go.
I’ve also been inspired by @SisterX’s solar oven and may try to build one of my own soon.
Finally, does anyone have experience with taking a long road trip or camping with an electric vehicle? I would like to transition to an EV, but concerns about running out of power to get back from a hiking or camping outing, or not being practical for cross-country travel, have been stopping me. I don’t want to maintain, insure, etc. two vehicles. A little reading suggests that maybe it’s not as difficult as I’ve thought? And first-hand experience out there?
3 Likes
Not firsthand exactly, but a friend has an electric car and finding working charging stations for her vehicle, which is not a Tesla, is a real problem sometimes when she is going long distances. She’s been caught a couple times where charger after charger wasn’t working or someone had parked in it so she couldn’t use it, and ran out of charge. Apparently Teslas have more chargers available so it’s less of a problem, she said. I forget what she has. Leaf, maybe?
This seems to be very region dependent, though. She is in VA.
2 Likes
I’m sorry you’re getting depressed about it all. Honesly, I am too. It’s beyond maddening that soooo many people are in denial about the MASSIVE problems we’re now facing. It’s tomorrow’s problem! I’ll be dead by the time climate change REALLY takes ahold! Um, did they not notice all the craziness of the last few years? It’s like the start of a zombie movie only instead of acknowledging that there are zombies all around slowly taking bites here and there people are pretending the zombies don’t exist so that they can keep going like normal. ???
Anyway, I doubt there’s anything we plebs can do to stop it. But we can add to our own resilience, we can stop adding to the problem, and hopefully by showing other ways of living we can inspire others to change too.
3 Likes
Today’s (unvetted) stories.
First a bit hope:
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/6-green-energy-milestones-reached-in-the-first-half-of-2021/
I don’t think we have any people on the forum from any of the countries featured, am I missing someone?*
One of my concerns that I seldom hear mentioned:
This is one location, but as climate change continues, one of my big fears is that the locations we depend upon for food will no longer be able to provide.
*And what do I have to do so that the preview will show?
4 Likes
It seems kind of fickle and sometimes for me only the first link entered (but not necessarily the first link in the post) will show a preview. it might also depend on the website linked to. That doesn’t help, I know, but it isn’t just you.
2 Likes
The water situation in the west was one of the biggest reasons we decided to leave California and move back to a place where rainfall was more or less predictable and year-round. I know it’s alarmist, but it’s a big freaking problem. I was there for the last big scary drought (2012? 13? Whenever it was. The reservoirs were scary low.) It was a bigger concern (to me) than earthquakes. Until the dry climate states take this more seriously (like, even fixing infrastructure would go a long way (hello leaking canals that are OPEN TO THE DRY DRY AIR for hundreds and hundreds of miles) all the conservation in the world won’t change. (This doesn’t even address how you are absolutely relying on supplying tens of millions of people with water from hundreds of miles away, while at the same time depleting the resource for local people, and denying downstream users (hi Mexico, I’m sorry, and RIP the Colorado River delta.) Also, maybe don’t grow almonds in the central valley.
4 Likes
Strong agree on this one. It’s part of why as I figure out where I want to go if I leave this particular HCOL area, I’m only really considering the eastern half of the country. I live in a dry area prone to drought and people just keep coming and coming and coming… I think there’s a rude awakening in terms of fires and record drought coming in the next decade.
2 Likes
Audubon has a cool webinar next week on how to meet with decision makers to impact climate change/other enviro shit.
4 Likes
Can anyone translate this for me? Pre coffee and can barely open eyes. Why is sustainable investing suspect?
2 Likes
Dubious metrics. Big polluters still able to qualify for inclusion on this like Dow Jones Sustainability Index when they may not actually be doing very much at all.
May delete this link if I feel it is too close to home.
I guess it’s potentially a feel good investment that might not actually be creating any change?
6 Likes
1 Like
I suspect there’s a fair bit of smoke and mirrors in this story.
Using its proprietary technology, the nascent luxury brand pulls carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, converts the greenhouse gas into the hydrocarbon methane, and then feeds this freshly synthesized raw material into a reactor.
Converting CO2 to methane requires a lot of energy but they say nothing about how this is done or what kind of energy they are using for this process.
For each carat Aether produces, the company pledges to remove 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with its signature direct air capture, as well as supplemental processes like geological sequestration, mineral sequestration, and reforestation. (Only a fraction of the carbon is sequestered “forever” in its diamonds, though; the majority is stored as liquid methane in tanks.)
These other processes mentioned have nothing to do with making diamonds. Injecting CO2 into the ground is an energy intense process in itself. Injecting water from oil & gas applications into the ground has led to an increase in earthquakes in locations where it’s done; I think injecting CO2 into the ground will be similarly problematic. I am also skeptical it will stay put.
I’m not familiar with “mineral sequestration” but I suspect it would do with forming Calcium Carbonate. Here’s the first article I pulled up on a Google search which outlines some of the problems including “geologic time scales.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/mineral-sequestration
Reforestation - plant trees.
Though its stones are carbon-negative, Aether as a whole is carbon-neutral, he acknowledged. That means the rest of the operation releases some of the same type of emissions that its diamonds clean up. Those emissions occur as a result of shipping to customers, use of electricity in staff office space, and transport of materials between the stages of production.
I’m sketical those are the only other emissions generated by this process. I’d take a pass on being an investor or a customer of this company.
4 Likes
Bummer. The sequestration and reforestation sound like social enterprise, not the process itself.
It would be good to get a deeper look at the company. But the idea of using carbon capture to create diamonds that don’t have the human cost… I mean… That seems pretty awesome. Even if the process still has emissions, if it’s a net zero, that’s a good start?
1 Like
Eh, it’s still tough for me to get excited about it. Even if the carbon in the diamonds is pulled from the atmosphere, it strikes me as an energy-intense process that potentially burns a lot of fossil fuels to produce the diamonds, then offsets those emissions with various sequestration strategies. All of this to produce some rocks that (as I understand it) are found near the earth’s surface and easily recovered from certain locations. DeBeers tightly controlled the supply and created and powerful marketing campaign that forced up the price of diamonds.
Now if there’s additional information about the process that shows they are not using fossil fuels and then offsetting those emissions, well that might change my stance.
I think two alternatives are to use a different gemstone instead of a diamond, or do the homework to find a company that can supply ethically-sourced diamonds produced with (what I assume would be) far less energy consumption.
But I don’t really value diamonds. I own none and don’t aspire to. I view them as a luxury good not necessary to human survival, and not a priority as we look for ways to reduce our fossil fuel consumption. In the short term I think we should reduce our energy usage to supply only necessities (this will not happen, but it’s where I’d start) and obtain as much energy for those necessities from renewable means. I think we need a complete mind-shift; I don’t think sequestering or offsetting emissions to provide luxury products / experiences are viable long-term strategies.
3 Likes
That’s all fair! Not believing that they aren’t drawing down more carbon than they’re using is a valid concern.
The rest I respect but I think the rich want to have what they’ve always had. Also the marketing for debeers, sure that’s the fact, but the cultiral reality still exists!!
In general, the idea of drawing carbon down is pretty awesome. Also liquid methane created as a biproduct could be an emissionless form of renewable fuel.
My thought is the only way we achieve mitigation of climate change, let alone drawdown, is gonna be a multitude of things happening. 🤷 Not saying diamonds are gonna solve our problem.
Oh eta:
Completely agree that we need to just move away from offsetting as a strategy. I just meant here that they use the actual carbon in their process. The reforestation and social enterprise crap can go. We just need to stop fossil fuels. 100 percent agree.
4 Likes
I agree on both of these points. Pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere, converting it to methane which is then used as energy, and cycling carbon through the atmosphere and back into fuel again, instead of simply taking more out of the ground would be a great advance. And I think there would be a lot more demand for that methane than the diamonds!
But this is also an interesting wrinkle in their plans. Assuming they are producing large, commercial quantities of methane - why are they liquefying it instead of putting it into a pipeline? If the CO2 is being pulled from the atmosphere, well, the process to produce the methane should turn up / down. It’s not like the CO2 is going to disappear if you don’t capture it fast enough.
It takes a lot of energy to liquefy methane, and there’s only a few reasons I can see to liquefy the methane at all.
One might be to cover peak demands, for example if you can’t turn the plant up and down fast enough to keep the pipeline pressure constant. It could be faster to vaporize some of LNG (liquefied natural gas, which is what liquid methane is) when it’s needed, keep the pipeline pressure steady, and then refill the LNG tank slowly when the pipeline doesn’t require as much methane.
Another reason is, if instead of capturing the CO2 from the atmosphere, it’s being captured from a stack gas, and the user does not want to turn THAT process up and down. Methane production is relatively constant, and the LNG level in the tank fluctuates to maintain the pipeline pressure.
My final guess is if one is shipping LNG across an ocean. I’m not sure what current regulations are for this.
Anyway, why not just say that’s what they are doing instead of making a big deal about diamonds which sound like they’ll be a small portion of the carbon molecules processed? This is the part of it that doesn’t add up to me. Methane and LNG are both commercial products, why not just say that’s what they are producing? It feels like a carbon laundering operation to me, and the diamonds are just the flashy cover story, a red herring to distract the reader. I’d need to know a lot more about their processes to really understand what’s going on and feel like it all hangs together.
2 Likes