I have started a campaign in Renewable Tuesdays to cover all of the major slices in Carbon’s Death of a Billion Cuts, and what slices governments and citizens can cut off. This Friday series is taking over the rest of the climate news, within the limitations of DK stories. Some things that used to be big deals are now too small for regular coverage.
First, the big picture. We are at Peak Carbon and Peak Pollution, but not at Peak Global Warming. That will continue until we reduce our carbon output significantly. Global Cooling cannot begin until we get well past Net Zero, and take more than a teraton of CO2 out of the air and water.
How do we do that? One slice at a time, billions of us.
Warming
Coal, Oil, and Gas
The basic law of supply and demand tells us that this overhang, which will soon reach 8 million bbl/day, will drastically reduce market prices, leaving only the lowest-cost producers standing. Oil will still be needed as a chemical feedstock except for products that can be replaced in some way, like single-use plastic packaging.
Renewables
We need to keep that up for a few decades more.
We need much more than 100%, to allow for EVs and new carbon-neutral technologies, and for global growth in electricity demand. There will be no problem keeping up the growth, with improving politics and new technologies.
Nuclear
Fuggedaboudit. The nuclear industry has its own forms of self-serving science and economic denial.
There is no problem with funding fusion research and molten-salt research reactors, as long as we recognize that they cost too much and take far too long to plan and build to help with Global Warming.
There is no reason to shut down working reactors until the replacement renewables have been built, except for those subject to major earthquake and flooding hazards, or reaching the end of their design lifetimes.
That’s it. There is no more to be said, and I won’t take it up in any Tuesday posts.
Storage
Denial
Industrial Processes
Trees and Agriculture
EVs
Country News
That’s Bhutan, Suriname, and Panama, all heavily forested, all with vast hydro resources.