Making Earth Cool Again: Challenges & Solutions
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The document discusses significant challenges posed by climate change, including potential economic impacts of up to a 10% decrease by 2100 due to global warming, and the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030. It presents various solutions such as promoting nuclear energy to decarbonize the power sector, adopting a vegetarian/vegan diet, and implementing a carbon fee plus dividend to stimulate the economy while addressing climate issues. The text emphasizes that urgency is critical to prevent exceeding a temperature rise of 1.5°C, with dire predictions if appropriate mitigation measures are not enacted.
Making Earth Cool Again: Challenges & Solutions
- 1. MAKING EARTH COOL AGAIN: Challenges & Solutions By Paul H. Carr
- 2. MAKING EARTH COOL AGAIN: Challenges & Solutions COOLING CHALLENGES: Fall 2018 Reports (1) Global Climate Change Impacts in US: 13 Government Agency Report (Nov 2018). Up to 10% decrease in US economy by 2100. (2) Preventing 2.7 F (1.5 C) degrees of warming." IPCC report, authored by 90 scientists from 40 countries (Oct 2018). Greenhouse pollution must be reduced by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050. COOL SOLUTIONS (1) "Can Nuclear Energy Thrive in a Carbon-Constrained World?: (MIT Report, Sept 2018) A reactor build-up (at a historically feasible rate) could completely decarbonize the World’s power sector within 30 years. The energy storage costs needed for wind and solar alone would make them up to four times more expensive than reactors. (2) A vegetarian/vegan diet is a way everyone can stop global warming. (3) Capitalistic solution: carbon fee plus dividend.
- 3. U.S. Climate Report Warns of Damaged Environment and Shrinking Economy Nov 23, 2018 Thirteen federal agencies predict: Global warming could knock 10% off our economy by 2100, double that of the 2008 recession. Projected climate losses per year: $141 billion from heat-related deaths, $118 billion from sea level rise and $32 billion from infrastructure damage. TOTAL $291 billion/yr Solutions: -Putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions -Next generation reactor buildout - Vegetarian/vegan diet
- 4. Southern states with hot climates stand to suffer more, with Florida taking the brunt, as it must also deal with sea level rise.
- 5. Miami Beach is a flood zone during King High Tides.
- 6. Rising seas threaten Norfolk Naval Shipyard, raising fears of 'catastrophic damage' Nicholas Kusnetz, InsideClimate News and Neela Banerjee, InsideClimate News Already, high-tide flooding is contributing to extensive delays in ship repairs, the GAO said, disrupting maintenance schedules throughout the Navy's fleet. Sea level in Norfolk has risen 1.5 feet in the past century, twice the global average, in part because the coastline is sinking. All of the nation's 69 submarines and 11 aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered. The ships can be repaired at only a handful of facilities with the equipment and personnel to handle radiological material. Of the Navy's four shipyards, only two can dry-dock aircraft carriers: Puget Sound in Washington state and Norfolk.
- 7. Blue: Sea level change from tide-gauge data (Church J.A. and White N.J., Geophys. Res. Lett. 2006; 33: L01602) Red: Univ. Colorado sea level analyses in satellite era (http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/SeaLevel/). Sea level rise has increased to 12 in/century at present from 3 in/century 1870– 1924. 12 in./100 years. 7.5 in./100 years 3 in. /100 years
- 8. 19 The rate of sea level increase correlates with the blue line of the CO2 increase. Sea level rise is due to thermal expansion (50%) and the melting of ice (50%) SEA LEVELS ARE RISING 4 TIMES FASTER THAN IN 1870. BY 2100, COULD RISE 4 TO 18 FEET.
- 9. 5 Meters (18 Feet) Sea Level Rise Trump’s Mar de Largo
- 10. 2018 HURRICANE MICHAEL’S WIND DAMAGE This elevated house in Mexico Beach, Fla., came through Hurricane Michael almost unscathed. Credit Johnny Milano for The New York Times
- 11. A wise rich man with foresight had the house, built of steel reinforced concrete elevated on tall pilings to allow a storm surge to pass underneath with little damage. The house, whose assessed value was $400,000, exceeded the building code. Johnny Milano for The New York Times Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si, On Care for our Common Home” noted that the poor suffer the most from the increasing weather extremes of climate change.
- 12. T 24 Aug 2005. Tropical Storm Approaches Southern Florida. 28 Aug 2005. Katrina, Category 5 Hurricane, gained energetic winds of 175 mph due to the record high temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico. 28 Aug 2005. Katrina, Category 5, 175 mph winds. Absorbed energy from the record high temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico. 29 Aug 2005. Katrina causes $100Bs damage to New Orleans, LA KATRINA: Tropical Storm to Hurricane Converting thermal energy of ocean to kinetic energy of wind
- 13. 13 2017 Hurricane Harvey, Texas, set a new US record of 52 inches for rainfall from a single storm. 2017 Hurricane Irma set net record: 3 days as a Category 5 Hurricane.
- 14. WEATHER EXTREMES ARE INCREASING • Normally wet areas getting wetter. - Atmosphere holds more moisture at higher temperatures. • Normally dry areas drier from more evaporation. - Israel’s 5-year drought is the longest in 100 years. - Now gets 70% of its drinking water from desalination plants • More forest fires in our Western States.
- 15. 15 Three Fold Increase in Wildfires since 1970 Fort McMurray Wildfire: 80,000 Evacuated Over Out-of-Control Blaze, May 2016. Nature ”crying out” to destroy the Canadian oil sands mining? Environmental Justice? Droughts increase wildfires. Warmer winters no longer kill off the Western Pine beetle, leaving more dead trees as flammable timber.
- 16. Attribution of western US forest fire area to ACC. Cumulative forest fire area estimated from the (red) observed all-metric mean record of fuel aridity and (black) the fuel aridity record after exclusion of ACC (No ACC). John T. Abatzoglou, and A. Park Williams PNAS 2016;113:42:11770-11775©2016 by National Academy of Sciences ACC: Anthropogenic Climate Change. An 8 fold increase in area burned since 1985
- 17. 17 2018 California Wildfires have burned 3 times more acres than the 5 year average and also 2017. The “Camp Fire” has left 1000s homeless and many cremated in their own homes. CLIMATE INJUSTICE because California leads the US in reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
- 18. We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns the UN. Urgent changes needed to cut risk of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty, says IPCC (8 Oct 2018)
- 20. Preventing 2.7 F (1.5 C) degrees of warming IPCC report, authored by 90 scientists from 40 countries. ---Greenhouse pollution must be reduced by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050. --By 2050, use of coal as an electricity source must drop from nearly 40 percent today to between 1 and 7 percent. “This report makes it clear: There is no way to mitigate climate change without getting rid of coal,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University and an author of the report.
- 21. PROBLEM: IN the US by 2040, NATURAL GAS & COAL WILL BE THE LARGEST SOURCES OF ELECTRICITY. SOLUTION: NEXT GENERATION NUCLEAR REACTORS HAVE THE BEST POTENTIAL TO REDUCE CARBON EMISSIONS 24/7 Figure from “Coal’s Last Kick” TIME, April 17, 2017 Not 24/7
- 22. Co-Organizations: Idaho National Laboratory, Breakthrough Institute, U of Wisconsin. Harvard U
- 23. MIT’s COOL SOLUTIONS: • A reactor build-up (at an historically feasible rate) could completely decarbonize the World’s power sector within 30 years • The energy storage costs needed to make wind and solar 24/7 would make them up to four times more expensive than with no reactors.
- 28. COST OF ENERGY STORAGE OPTIONS (MIT study).
- 31. Low-Cost 'Miniature', Modular Nuclear Power Plants. They can fit on the back of a truck. JOSH HRALA 20 JAN 2017 Working with the US Department of Energy (DOE), NuScale Power, Portland, Oregon, plans to build a 12-module plant in Idaho The 50 MegaWatt design is approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and will be mass produced to reduce cost by 2026. Self contained light water reactor(s) installed in a concrete lined hole in the ground. Water circulates by convection. Automatic shut down. Westinghouse plans to have its eVinci SMR commercial by 2024. https://www.sciencealert.com/miniature-modular-nuclear-power-plants-are-being-implemented-in-the-us
- 32. South Korea is constructing and will operate 4 nuclear reactors in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. S. Korea has built many reactors a below fossil-fuel prices Burj Dubai, Worlds Tallest Skyscraper, . WHY WOULD THE MAJOR OIL SUPPLIERS BE INVESTING IN NUCLEAR?
- 33. • FOSSIL FUELS WILL NOT MEET THE ENEGY DEMAND • NUCLEAR WILL BE THE 24/7 SOURCE OF ENERGY, SUPPLIMENTED BY WIND AND SOLAR.
- 35. 35 Alvin Weinberg demonstrated a Thorium molten-salt nuclear reactor at Oak Ridge in 1965- 1969. Its fission byproducts had no weapons value during the Cold War’s nuclear arms race and zero chance of a meltdown. Thorium reactors lost to Navy Admiral Rickover’s Uranium water- cooled for nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. Present uranium civilian reactors, which generate 20% of our electricity without carbon emissions, are a spinoff from Rickover’s navy technology.
- 36. Pressurized water raises the boiling temperature of nuclear reactors in use today. & Thorium • Molten salt reactors operate in the atmosphere. • No expensive containment structures • Uses spent U & Th as fuel. • Shut down automatically.
- 37. Only Nuclear Energy Can Save the Planet Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan A. Qvist Wall St Journal January 11, 2019 Do the math on replacing fossil fuels (MIT did this): To move fast enough, the world needs to build lots of reactors https://www.wsj.com/articles/only-nuclear-energy-can-save-the-planet- 11547225861?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=8
- 38. Wall Street Journal Article “Nuclear power is the safest form of energy by far…. Reasons put forward to oppose nuclear power in no way stack up to the real dangers facing humanity from climate change.”
- 39. REACTORS ARE THE SAFEST New Scientist crunched the numbers. That maximum death-toll estimates from that analysis show: • Natural gas is 1.3 times as dangerous as nuclear • Coal is 27 times as dangerous as nuclear • Hydroelectric is 46 times as dangerous as nuclear In absolute terms, nuclear energy prevents about 80,000 air-pollution-related deaths a year, according to a 2013 study.
- 40. Wall Street Journal: “Nuclear waste the insurmountable problem that the public has been led to believe. The volumes are tiny, unlike the vast quantities of equally toxic waste from coal and other fuels. An American’s entire lifetime of electricity use powered by nuclear energy would produce an amount of long-term waste that fits in a soda can. All spent fuel from U.S. reactors over the past 60 years would fit on a football field, stacked 20 feet high. Today we store spent fuel at reactor sites in concrete casks (radiation does not escape the concrete) that will be safe for a hundred years. After that, the waste can be burned in reactors that are currently being designed, or it can be buried permanently.”
- 41. Bill Gates’ use of nuclear waste http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-talks-private-nuclear-fission-plant- terrapower-2016-4 • Gates’ TerraPower's nuclear pilot plant was to be built with the China National Nuclear Corp. The economics, safety, waste, and all the key parameters would be dramatically improved. • The traveling wave reactor converts depleted uranium, a byproduct of the nuclear-fission process, into usable fuel. Trump will not let critical nuclear technology be built in China, so Gates is looking for a new partner.
- 43. 2. COOL SOLUTIONS to GLOBAL WARMING. What we can do as individuals a. Less food waste. b. A vegetarian/vegan diet.
- 44. 44 Of the 100 ways of reducing global warming the following were rated: 3. Reduced Food Waste 4. Plant-Rich Diet
- 45. 45 Peter Kalmus, PhD, atmospheric scientist at Caltech, lives with his wife and 2 children on 1/10th the fossil fuels of the average American.
- 47. STOP EATING RED MEAT: BEEF AND PORK Agriculture accounts for 24% of our greenhouse emissions. • Cattle & pigs emit the greenhouse gases methane, CH4. They eat grains needed for humans. • In addition, deforestation—clearing land for crops, for instance— removes trees that pull CO2 out of the air,
- 49. 3. COOL CUMMUNITY SOLUTIONS • Capitalistic Carbon Fee plus Dividend. www.CitizensClimateLobby.com • Green New Deal
- 50. 10/9/15 www. CitizensClimateLobby.org - Revenue neutral carbon fee with dividend. (RNCFD) -Dividend would be returned to everyone. $2000 / family. -Stimulating economy & creating 2 million jobs. - Stimulate Green Energy Innovation. True social cost of burning fossil fuels. Harness Greed towards Green
- 51. MAKING EARTH COOL AGAIN: Challenges & Solutions COOLING CHALLENGES: Fall 2018 Reports (1) Global Climate Change Impacts in US: 13 Government Agency Report (Nov 2018). Up to 10% decrease in US economy by 2100. (2) Preventing 2.7 F (1.5 C) degrees of warming." IPCC report, authored by 90 scientists from 40 countries (Oct 2018). Greenhouse pollution must be reduced by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050. COOL SOLUTIONS (1) "Can Nuclear Energy Thrive in a Carbon-Constrained World?: (MIT Report, Sept 2018) A reactor build-up (at a historically feasible rate) could completely decarbonize the World’s power sector within 30 years. The energy storage costs needed for wind and solar alone would make them up to four times more expensive than reactors. (2) A vegetarian/vegan diet is a way everyone can stopping global warming. (3) Capitalistic solution: carbon fee plus dividend.
Editor's Notes
- #17: Attribution of western US forest fire area to ACC. Cumulative forest fire area estimated from the (red) observed all-metric mean record of fuel aridity and (black) the fuel aridity record after exclusion of ACC (No ACC). The (orange) difference is the forest fire area forced by anthropogenic increases in fuel aridity. Bold lines in A and horizontal lines within box plots in B indicate mean estimated values (regression values in Fig. 1). Boxes in B bound 50% confidence intervals. Shaded areas in A and whiskers in B bound 95% confidence intervals. Dark red horizontal lines in B indicate observed forest fire area during each period.