Files Suggest Climate Summit's Leader Is Using Event To Promote Fossil Fuels (nytimes.com) 139
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: As the host of global climate talks that begin this week, the United Arab Emirates is expected to play a central role in forging an agreement to move the world more rapidly away from coal, oil and gas. But behind the scenes, the Emirates has sought to use its position as host to pursue a contradictory goal: to lobby on oil and gas deals around the world, according to an internal document made public by a whistle-blower.
In one example, the document offers guidance for Emirati climate officials to use meetings with Brazil's environment minister to enlist her help with a local petrochemical deal by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the Emirates' state-run oil and gas company, known as Adnoc. Emirati officials should also inform their Chinese counterparts that Adnoc was "willing to jointly evaluate international LNG opportunities" in Mozambique, Canada and Australia, the document indicates. LNG stands for liquefied natural gas, which is a fossil fuel and a driver of global warming.
These and other details in the nearly 50-page document -- obtained by the Centre for Climate Reportingand the BBC -- have cast a pall over the climate summit, which begins on Thursday. They are indications, experts said, that the U.A.E. is blurring the boundary between its powerful standing as host of the United Nations climate conference, and U.A.E.'s position as one of the world's largest oil and gas exporters. [...] In private, delegates preparing to travel to Dubai expressed concerns that the cloud surrounding the host nation threatened to discredit the talks themselves. The allegations, they said, risked undermining what many have hoped the negotiations will yield: a deal to replace polluting fossil fuels with clean energy such as wind and solar power. But many said they were reluctant to speak out publicly, for fear of jeopardizing their ability to negotiate.
These and other details in the nearly 50-page document -- obtained by the Centre for Climate Reportingand the BBC -- have cast a pall over the climate summit, which begins on Thursday. They are indications, experts said, that the U.A.E. is blurring the boundary between its powerful standing as host of the United Nations climate conference, and U.A.E.'s position as one of the world's largest oil and gas exporters. [...] In private, delegates preparing to travel to Dubai expressed concerns that the cloud surrounding the host nation threatened to discredit the talks themselves. The allegations, they said, risked undermining what many have hoped the negotiations will yield: a deal to replace polluting fossil fuels with clean energy such as wind and solar power. But many said they were reluctant to speak out publicly, for fear of jeopardizing their ability to negotiate.
What did they expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm really not sure what people expected.
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The real question is: how many will take the bait?
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Yeah really, this is what junkets are for, what's the big deal?
The real question is: how many will take the bribes?
FTFY
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Biden ain't going, which speaks well of him. Especially after how well the fist bump was received, he had to do something to snub the house of Saud.
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How does not going to an event hosted by the house of Al Falasi snub the house of Saud?
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That's a lot of proselytization for natural gas. Do you own stock in some LNG company or something? ;-)
You aren't wrong about many of the 'green nutjobs' but you're kind of glossing over the fact that there are carbon neutral electrical generation options that can fill the gap for 'intermittents'. Hydro and nuclear are primary energy sources. Hydro can be spun up or down pretty much at will, assuming you have water. Current nuclear plant designs don't easily allow for this, they're better for base load
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Full disclosure: I own exactly zero stock in any kind of energy directly (I may own some through a fund that I do not control, I do not own any funds that are specifically aimed at power generation sector. Finally Qatari are extremely competitive in the sector and their company is a government company. I.e. if I owned stock in the sector, I would likely be at least with some likelihood against rise of competitors in terms of supply.
I.e. as far as I know, my only interest in the field is being an environment
Denmark is not on the Scandanavian peninsula (Score:2)
...
In real terms however, hydro's primary requirement is geography. This is why I keep telling people on this site not to take Denmark as an example of anything on power generation, other than abject failure. The only reason Danes have a first world grid is geography of Scandinavian Peninsula,
Uh, do you actually know where Denmark is?
https://www.google.com/maps/pl... [google.com]
Re:Denmark is not on the Scandanavian peninsula (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. Do you know what interconnects Denmark has, and who is the primary client of Norwegian and Swedish hydro producers? Do you know about the recent contract "renegotiations" where Swedish grid operator did an excellent impression of Darth Vader with Danes because they knew that Danes can either pay for their services whatever they ask, or they can cry and pay for their services whatever they ask.
Which is why they more than trebled the transit fees. Beggars who need power from both Norwegian grids and Swedish grids which are primarily routed through southern Sweden can't choose otherwise.
So they obviously just asked Swedes to use lube if it would be okay before getting anally raped on the transfer costs.
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>Nuclear is decent, but currently by far the most expensive source of energy.
Reality check: Most profitable industrial investment of all time in Finland is Loviisa 1 reactor. Second most profitable is Loviisa 2 reactor. Third is Olkiluoto 1 and fourth is Olkiluoto 2. Our large scale forestry companies and metalwork/machinery companies with over a century of history come a very distant fifth onwards.
"Expensive nuclear" is an anthrophobic choice. As in you can mandate that every plant must be safer than th
Re:What did they expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
Green nutjobs are, I think, working on the basis that careful engineering is need to overcome the issue of intermittency. We use gas at the moment as dispatchable power; but it is already been replaced for very short term fluctuations by battery power which do the job better, faster and with lower standby costs. After this, overcapacity, more batteries and interlink are the next strategy. Then, highly controllable or predictable renewables -- hydro (pumped or resevoir) already, and geothermal or tidal as upcoming contenders.
After that, we lack a good seasonal technology; I suspect that this will be hydrogen or derivatives.
LNG is the past (in more ways than one). It will be displaced. The question is how long it takes.
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> that careful engineering is need to overcome the issue of intermittency.
This is the perpetual motion engine argument, rehashed in it's n+1st version, where n is a very large number. No amount of "careful engineering" can subvert second law of thermodynamics. And no amount of "careful engineering" can address the geographic reality that we don't have a massive overabundance of Scandinavian Peninsula style geography where hydro suitable for spinning reserve can be generated in large amounts with "careful
Re:What did they expect? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, this is a strawman argument.
For example, we could put heavy interlink between the UK and Norway. That way the UK gets controllable hydro power from Norway when wind is short, and Norway gets cheap wind power from UK, saving water for when it is needed. "Could" in the sense of are already do have this interlink and are putting more in.
Likewise, plans for a hydrogen network across Europe.
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No, this is simple insistence that reality trumps imagination. There's not enough hydro in Norway to keep UK grid up, nor enough viable reservoir space even if interconnects were pulled in larger amounts. Geography is an inherent limiting factor that you cannot "carefully engineer" around, be it geography or second law of thermodynamics.
You can see the data by simply comparing population numbers and total electricity consumption numbers. Which is why UK did exactly what I suggested above. Built a massive fl
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The gas turbines are older than the bulk of our wind turbines. So, no, we didn't build the gas to support the wind. We did build gas to displace coal which it has largely done.
Norway does not need to keep the UK grid up. It needs to help balance it. That is why we have the interconnect and are building more.
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Yes, that is because the bulk of gas turbines are 50-year projects, whereas early wind turbines tend to get dismantled after 10-15 years, 20 at the latest. Usually earlier, as early turbines are hilariously expensive to maintain because of them still having gearboxes that require very intensive maintenance regime to work.
And UK grid does not need external balancing. They built it from ground up as independent. This is why it has enough capacity to meet more than half of total needs with just CCGT fleet alon
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The gearbox failure rates are why they are now using direct drives. But, indeed, the early wind turbines, many of which were design prototypes did have a high failure rate, and gas turbines built at the same time being old, well-developed and extremely mature technology were more reliable. That is hardly a surprise.
And, to some extent, it remains a problem. Wind turbines keep on getting bigger and this is causing both supply chain, installation and maintenance issues. I think that will resolve over the next
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>The gearbox failure rates are why they are now using direct drives. But, indeed, the early wind turbines, many of which were design prototypes did have a high failure rate, and gas turbines built at the same time being old, well-developed and extremely mature technology were more reliable. That is hardly a surprise.
Modern CCGTs are actually fairly new. Combined cycle is very difficult in terms of practical engineering to get working without something tearing itself apart, which is why while Brayton cycl
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"Modern CCGTs are actually fairly new" is truistic I think.
The point is wind turbines are currently getting bigger. They would have got a lot more reliable if they didn't keep redesigning them for size, rather than just somewhat more reliable. It will happen because the economic pressure is too great. Likewise, we will stop using natural gas because the environment damage is too great. It's a question of when, but sooner the better is the reality.
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How does it feel that even with all the socket puppet accounts, you have less and mod points to mod me down in long post chains over last two years?
You can change this trajectory. You need to troll harder. Right now, you've gotten both more boring and more inept. To the point where I mostly just ignore you, as you don't entertain me nearly as well as you did over last two years or so that you've been stalking me on slashdot.
Git gud scrub. I want my old fun stalker back that actually could argue the points i
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These voices in your head? They're not real. It's just one of you in there.
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On the last note, the easiest way to tell if someone understands the subject of grid power generation, is to check for certain markers of extreme ignorance of the subject matter.
One of these markers is "let's not do natgas, let's do hydrogen". In the world where almost all hydrogen is generated from... natural gas. Because for all the grandstanding, other methods are extremely uneconomical in comparison.
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And where will the hydrogen come from in 10 years time, and in 20?
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Unicorn farts, apparently.
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I was thinking more along the lines of self-standing offshore electrolysis. But, maybe unicorns will work better.
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Yes, and we'll also magically conjure completely new seal technology that breaks laws of physics as we understand them today, allowing us to move hydrogen around long distance via pipes while at it.
Again, dreams vs reality. You live in a dream world. Things you talk about exist at small scale. They exist at small scale because they are hilariously uneconomical.
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We have numerous coatings and sealants which resist hydrogen today.
We will still leak a bunch of hydrogen because we're too cheap to build double walled pipelines, of course. Just like we leak a bunch of oil from pipelines now for the same reason.
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Weasel words. Atmosphere resists hydrogen as well.
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It's quite possible to move hydrogen around. We know how to do it and have been doing it for a while. It can be done with pipes or indeed with ships. Depending on the distance involved, that can be done as hydrogen or through conversion to ammonia. Both hydrogen and ammonia are in massive demand as chemical feedstocks also, so nice and handy dual purpose.
It's not dreams vs reality. I'm just not assuming that what is true technologically now will always be true. We do not have all the answers, we do not have
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We Finns have a saying. It is possible to climb up a tree ass first.
Just because something is possible doesn't mean that something is viable. It's quite possible to extract gold from seawater. Working prototypes are from mid 1900s. It's however utterly unviable as long as alternatives exist. Same applies to moving hydrogen around. It's possible. It's utterly unviable, which is why the massive amount of hydrogen we get as waste product of steam cracking coal, oil and natgas are either used on site or flared
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And ammonia or methanol are also methods for storing hydrogen. We need to start producing hydrogen, from green sources, in much, much larger quantities than we do at the moment. We already know how to store it and we already know how to transport it. The question is not how, but which way is cheapest.
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But that doesn't work with small scale generation any more. You need economies of scale for that. So inherently incompatible with small scale generators like the excess wind turbines.
Are you starting to see my point yet? "Let's just make free hydrogen (1) from free power (2)" doesn't actually work the moment you stop dreaming big and start looking at engineering in detail.
1 hydrogen isn't actually free and needs to be moved
2 power isn't free, needs massive initial investment, extremely punitive grid wide ru
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Same place it's coming from today, and same place it came from for pretty much entire industrial age for what, a century at this point? Steam cracking. Pretty much the only thing we figured out to improve on that end lately has been to use hydrogen on site to power the cracking process. Because as far as steam cracking is concerned, hydrogen is a dangerous waste product. The main difference between processes of today and early industrial age is which specific fossil source we crack it from. Today, we advanc
Hydrogen [Re:What did they expect?] (Score:2)
One of these markers is "let's not do natgas, let's do hydrogen". In the world where almost all hydrogen is generated from... natural gas.
I'm not an advocate of hydrogen. But, nevertheless, I do understand that it is straightforward to generate hydrogen from electrolyzing water; you don't need to use natural gas.
Because for all the grandstanding, other methods are extremely uneconomical in comparison.
Today, with most electricity generated from natural gas, it makes no sense to have a middle step of generating electricity rather than producing the hydrogen directly from methane. But we're not talking about today. The discussion was about intermittency of renewable power, and the answer "store it in the form hydrogen" clearly refers
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>But, nevertheless, I do understand that it is straightforward to generate hydrogen from electrolyzing water; you don't need to use natural gas.
This statement is incoherent in context. The reference is to functional and scalable deplyment. Electrolyzing water for hydrogen at wind mills is neither.
Otherwise, I can make the exact same argument for extracting gold from same ocean water. It's also straightforward. It's also exceedingly expensive and not scalable.
On your second point, I will continue to beat
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>But, nevertheless, I do understand that it is straightforward to generate hydrogen from electrolyzing water; you don't need to use natural gas.
This statement is incoherent in context. The reference is to functional and scalable deplyment. Electrolyzing water for hydrogen at wind mills is neither.
Your argument boils down to your asserting "it's not possible to scale up technologies, won't happen, can't happen." Making hydrogen from electrolyzing water isn't done at large scale today for one reason: because there isn't a market for it. Period, end of story.
Yes, if we're making electricity from natural gas, which we do today, it makes no sense to make hydrogen from electricity. That's today. We're not discussing today.
Otherwise, I can make the exact same argument for extracting gold from same ocean water. It's also straightforward. It's also exceedingly expensive and not scalable.
Unlike gold from seawater, hydrogen is produced from electrolysis all the time. My
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>"Your argument boils down to " [insert ridiculous strawman here].
Feel free to address the argument being made instead if you want a reply. Until then, I'll just note that you couldn't take the actual argument being made, so you strawmanned it indicating that you have no coutner arguments.
>Unlike gold from seawater, hydrogen is produced from electrolysis all the time. My lab has a hydrogen generator that uses electrolysis. You can buy them [google.com] commercially. If there were a market to scale the
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>"Your argument boils down to " [insert ridiculous strawman here].
OK, I will insert. The argument you made boiled down to: "it's not possible to scale up technologies, won't happen, can't happen."
To which I replied: Making hydrogen from electrolyzing water isn't done at large scale today for one reason: because there isn't a market for it. Period, end of story.
Feel free to address the argument being made instead if you want a reply.
I addressed it. The reason it hasn't yet been scaled up is that there isn't a market yet.
...
Making gold from water is a well established process.
Bullshit. Citation needed.
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I will once again reiterate that there's plenty of market for very cheap hydrogen. SSAB for example will gladly take it just to name a company I'm very familiar with. They're pushing for the new "carbon free" process for steel manufacturing which involves a lot of hydrogen. Having access to very cheap hydrogen would cut their costs quite a bit, though the process itself still sucks in terms of efficiency so it will still be largely non-competitive steel.
As for your "citation needed" part, have you ever hear
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You subtly switched the argument. Now you're saying that if hydrogen from electrolysis were vastly cheaper than hydrogen from methane, it would have use in steelmaking. Since we currently make electricity from methane, as I pointed out at the beginning of this thread, it makes no sense burn methane to electrolyze water to make hydrogen to reduce iron to make steel, that's just an indirect way of making steel using fossil fuels, which you do by just reducing the iron with methane directly, avoiding all the o
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Let's sanity check your statement just to do the most basic "is this trolling, or is this a real claim" test.
So your take is that my "harder to make, nearly impossible to move, needs to be done at scale which is not possible with a lot of small on site producers" has changed because.... I point out that if the claim of it being free actually was true and all points I made were factually wrong, there would be use for it, right away?
Take off the bad faith lens if you wish to continue this discussion. I have e
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Let's sanity check your statement just to do the most basic "is this trolling, or is this a real claim" test.
So your take is that my "harder to make, nearly impossible to move, needs to be done at scale which is not possible with a lot of small on site producers" has changed because....
Correct. Those are your claims, and they are all unsupported. If you put in an added line "...with the technology currently in use today...", I wouldn't challenge it.
I point out that if the claim of it being free actually was true
Nobody made that claim.
Apparently this is the basis of your disagreement? You think that somebody said hydrogen production would be free?
OK, we are apparently in agreement, then. Hydrogen production will not be free.
...
So either make a case about my actual argument, or alternatively get a fire hose for your pants.
Apparently your actual argument was not about my actual argument, since I never claimed hydrogen production would be free.
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Bad faith it is. Best of luck with the rest of your gaslighting. I don't mind rolling in the dirt with pigs when they are honest about being pigs from the start. I refuse to do so when the pig decides to dress itself up first, and only reveal its love for desperate mudslinging mid conversation.
Have a good mud bath on your own. At least it will put your pants out from the fire they're on.
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In the world where almost all hydrogen is generated from... natural gas.
Found the person who said "why do we need a car" in a world where all transport was done on horses and trains.
Luckyo, we are talking about future projects. Virtually all hydrogen production currently going in, especially related to hydrogen hubs or hydrogen pipelines is done via electrolysis.
Nearly all of your posts are about the past. Go outside and shout at clouds to spare us.
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My posts are about reality. Dreamers tend to associate reality with "past", because future potential appears to dreamers as a dreamlike utopia.
It's not bad to be a dreamer to be sure. But it's helpful to anchor your dreams to reality when discussing important subjects. Be it universal genocidality of human progressivism when discussing the next progressive utopia that is totally coming and how Real Communism Has Never Been Tried, or remembering second law of thermodynamics when discussing your next Perpetua
Entropy [Re:What did they expect?] (Score:2)
You do sometimes have actual insightful things to say, but the insights get buried when you use scientific-sounding gibberish to support your opinions stated as fact.
> that careful engineering is need to overcome the issue of intermittency.
This is the perpetual motion engine argument, rehashed in it's n+1st version, where n is a very large number. No amount of "careful engineering" can subvert second law of thermodynamics.
Since intermittency of energy sources has nothing to do with the second law of thermodynamics, that statement makes no sense. (And energy storage does not comprise a perpetual motion machine, neither of the first kind nor the second kind.)
The second law of thermodynamics [slideserve.com], in brief, says that in any closed system entropy must stay constant or in
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So I address the claim of "careful engineering" being able to subvert basic laws of reality and reference perpetual motion engines. A well documented historical issue within engineering and scientific communities over last few centuries, and rich imagination that made a lot of capable engineers think they can use "careful engineering" to get around basic laws of reality. And cite second law of thermodynamics as a reason for why we know they don't work. And no amount of "careful engineering" can make it work
scientific-sounding gibberish [Re:Entropy] (Score:2)
And you decided to pretend I said something completely different so you could debunk me for... "using scientific-sounding gibberish".
The first sentence of your post was about perpetual motion machines, and the second sentence about the second law of thermodynamics. You want to scroll back and look?
Bullshit you "said something completely different" and nothing about perpetual motion machines or the second law of thermodynamics.
You were spouting scientific-sounding gibberish that made no sense and had nothing to do with the subject.
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>The first sentence of your post was about perpetual motion machines, and the second sentence about the second law of thermodynamics.
Was this the first post opening the discussion, or was it a reply to a well established line of discussion?
Why are you trying this low effort gaslighting?
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Correct; your scientific-sounding gibberish was in response to a discussion thread, although the response had nothing to do with the thread.
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If only there were a thing you could put energy from intermittent sources into and then take it out later. You could build arrays of these things, like artillery batteries or something.
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Indeed. If only there was a battery chemistry that was plentiful, affordable and maintainable.
Should you invent such a unicorn, patent it to become the richest man in the world.
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Indeed. If only there was a battery chemistry that was plentiful, affordable and maintainable.
Yeah, nobody would work such a pipe dream [torquenews.com].
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You're citing a well known case, which established unsuitability of that chemistry for significant grid deployment. You see, it fails the following categories:
1. Plentiful.
2. Affordable
3. Maintainable.
If you wonder why, ask Rio Tinto Australia's head of lithium mining unit. She gave quite a speech on the topic at an investor call in the wake of this battery and potential need of lithium skyrocketing.
In the end, the battery you're referencing is a well known edge case, where a very far away location with ver
Shocked, shocked I tell you! (Score:5, Funny)
Well not that shocked.
Maybe to gas up all the jets (Score:5, Insightful)
That the attendees of the summit will use to get there. Because it's only evil when I fly. Not when they fly.
Or perhaps to run the oil and gas power plants that will need to pick up the slack for when the wind doesn't blow (or blows too fast) and the sun doesn't shine. Because nuclear power has the unfortunate property of being both clean *and* reliable. So if we use it, no more emissions to scream bloody murder about and no blackouts to blame on $political_scapegoat.
No. I'm sure it's something else.
Like keeping the oil flowing cuz even Ned Lamont (D-Conn) has finally realized that we won't be driving electric cars on the Moon any time soon, and being green is nice but not being destitute is even better.
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When I say "we," I mean parts of the world that actually want to change for the better.
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Oh, you're going to be so embarrassed when we have reliable, consistent, cheap renewable energy that's better than anything we've ever had before.
Well, since his initial point was about flying and there's no renewable energy source I'm aware of that can replace jet fuel in the aviation application, I think you're both wrong, lol.
Granted, aviation is less than <3% of carbon emissions, which if we were being sensible would be a good reason for climate activists to stop trying to shame people who fly. All it does is breed resentment. And stop trying to come after my fucking gas stove. I thought that was Fox News nonsense and come to find out it
Re:Maybe to gas up all the jets (Score:5, Interesting)
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Oh lordie, I'm talking to a rail zealot. Yeah, that's not gonna happen in the US. It's a struggle here to get approval for the transmission lines we'll need to transport renewable power all over the country. You think we can get the required land easements to build a nationwide high speed rail network? Every attempt has ended in failure. Here's a debate [seattletimes.com] from my part of the US -- side note, the very liberal/progressive part (or so we like to tell ourselves anyway) -- where high speed rail would actually
Re:Maybe to gas up all the jets (Score:4, Informative)
High speed rail (not what you guys have) goes 350 a 450KM per hour. And that is with normal rail.
If we would go the maglev-route (expensive) it can go up to 800KM/hour. (note 1,192 km/h is the speed of sound)
And yes the high speed rail in Europe is big city to big city. Like from capital to capital.
From there you transfer to the slower, local trains for the last mile.
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That only proves ones again that the USA is a crap country to live in.
Someone should tell the millions of people desperately trying to come to the USA how horrible it is. They clearly didn't get the memo.
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And, why did you pick Madrid to "Stockholm"? You know that Stockholm & many other Scandanavian cities are poorly connected to continental rail networks, right? Why not pick a city in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany or Italy?
Re: Amtrack, yeah, I wouldn't use it either. I am, however, perfectly happy to use European high-speed rail. Short-haul flights are horrible compared to trains
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And, why did you pick Madrid to "Stockholm"? You know that Stockholm & many other Scandanavian cities are poorly connected to continental rail networks, right? Why not pick a city in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany or Italy?
Because the whole fucking point is even the fastest trains (which do not exist in the US) cannot compete with air travel on transcontinental routes. I would have said "Madrid to Moscow", except, some asshat started a war and there's no regularly scheduled service of any kind to Moscow any longer.
Why not pick a city in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany or Italy?
Because I will readily concede the superiority of a decent rail system over aviation for regional trips. Like Seattle to Portland. Or trips within the East Coast Megalopolis (aka: BosWash). I'm not anti-rail.
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Re:Maybe to gas up all the jets (Score:5, Insightful)
subjectively inferior electric experience.
Keyword here is "subjectively". Which actually means that you are used to your gas stove, and the force of habit makes you think it is superior. That, and it usually reminds you of your childhood, so it brings back comforting memories. Plus seeing controlled fire also talks to the primitive part of our brain, because "fire, fire is good".
However, there is a reason why starred chefs in France now prefer induction cooking. And guess what: that reason is because it objectively is a superior experience.
I do agree with you that having zero kids is the best thing you can do though. Kinda linked to that, there were talks and studies about a "CO2 passport" in the EU a while back. Where people could see how much CO2 emissions they were responsible for (based on travels, the goods they would buy, their eating habits, their homes...). The more I think about it recently, the more it makes sense: if someone wants to use his CO2 quota to use a gas stove, why not. If someone else prefers induction cooking, but instead buy a carbon bike, why not. It would actually allow people to make their own choices. Including the choice to resell some of their quota to wealthy people of course.
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Well, since his initial point was about flying and there's no renewable energy source I'm aware of that can replace jet fuel in the aviation application, I think you're both wrong, lol.
His point was about hypocrisy. It's about those who lecture us and claim to be "green" yet are the highest users of fossil fuels by a country mile. It's just another all-too-obvious confirmation that we are their inferiors and need to do without so that they can continue in comfort and custom. I might listen to the message if those who bring it lead by example. And buying carbon credits ain't that.
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Oh, you're going to be so embarrassed when we have reliable, consistent, cheap renewable energy that's better than anything we've ever had before.
Call me when that happens.
In other words: betting your future and the one of your kids on a potential solution that has no proven track record, in a game of life where you can't reload a savegame when you realize you messed up, is not the smartest move.
Of course, if you replace your assertion by "reliable, consistent, cheap low-carbon energy", then I would agree with you.
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Change is coming. Don't be afraid.
Re: Maybe to gas up all the jets (Score:2)
I live in Massachusetts, which is about as "we" as you can get without being California or Texas in terms of wind and solar. But it's close. We shut down our last nuke a few years back and the promised powerlines to Canada and offshore wind have yet to materialize and are not likely to any time soon, leaving an ever dwindling supply of gas plants to pick up the slack in the winter, with what is now an annual tradition of warnings about potential wintertime and summertime blackouts.
We're just behind Californ
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If I use a petrol car to go to work and build EVs am I evil? Or do you not realise that the decisions and agreements made at these places have many orders of magnitude larger impact than the plane used to get there?
Grow up.
Please fix the headline, "Host" =/= "Leader" (Score:3)
Your headline is excessively clickbait-y.
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The "president of the United Nations climate conference" ... "is an oil executive in the United Arab Emirates".
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There is nothing in the source NYT article to indicate the Emirates who are hosting this one summit in a series of summits are "Leading" the summit.
The host of these summits always lead the summit and play a pivotal role in how they progress. This isn't clickbaity-y. This is an insanely fucking relevant headline. Also the term "leader" is literally in the NYT headline, so you're quite wrong that there's nothing in the source indicating they are the leader.
But if you need some more concrete source, then go to the original source itself: https://www.cop28.com/en/cop28... [cop28.com] who themselves highlight quite prominently who is "leading" the summit.
Scroll down t
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Stop interfering with our purity spiral. You're destroying democracy.
Unless and until (Score:1)
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So until they go and live in a different society, one with no access to communication devices and no abillity to be heard, you are going to refuse to listen to them? That's a really effective way to stick your head in the sand. It is not possible to be completely carbon neutral, or to rely entirely on renewables, while living in a society that has been built on fossil fuels. It is possible to try to minimise their use as much as possible but much of this is structural and not possible for individuals. Struc
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To go with an old expression people were probably brought up on; Rome wasn't built in a day.
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You have to play the hand you're dealt, dickhead. That hand includes fighting one of the most heavily subsidized industries on the planet, and their 50 years of bribing governments for favourable laws.
I can't decide whether you're flat-out dishonest, or just plain stupid.
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That's not my game, or anybody's. It's just a lie told by scumbags like you who are either too dishonest or too viciously stupid to understand an inconvenient reality.
Your children, if you ever have any, will spit on your grave.
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What's the problem with nuclear?
Right now? Cost.
Nuclear advocates say that next-generation nuclear plants, properly engineered, could be much cheaper.
True? Maybe.
Next... (Score:5, Insightful)
After that, McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, et al. to take over national agencies that research, design, & promote dietary advice.
Yeah, what's wrong with giving oil producers a central role in organising the negotiations over the future of fossil fuels consumption?
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Junk food manufacturers did in fact try to promote their own dietary advice. Back in the early 2000s I think, maybe the 90s. They ran ads telling viewers that it was okay to eat chocolate bars on days where they got some extra exercise, but that they should lay off at other times. It's bad advice of course, but helps sell chocolate bars.
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The one I like the best is how the owners of Subway named the holding company 'doctors associates'. Where I used to live, they would promote their meals as an alternative to junk food and add a line to the bottom of their adverts saying 'endorsed by doctors associates'. Most people thought this meant some kind of medical professional group was endorsing their products, when it was actually just the corporate name for subway.
Why Dubai? (Score:5, Informative)
The decision to hold the conference there, of all places, is not readily apparent. From what I can see, the decision was made mostly in secret.
Jan 2023: "In January, the UNFCCC Secretariat declared Asia-Pacific Group’s decision for the UAE to be the host, with Sultan Al Jaber, its minister of industry and advanced technology, at the helm as the conference’s president. Six months later, the UAE announced that COP28 will take place at Dubai’s Expo City." [1] [newscientist.com]
"This year, it was the Asia-Pacific group’s turn to host, and the United Arab Emirates made an unopposed bid in May 2021." [2] [archive.is]
May 2021: "The United Arab Emirates has launched a bid to host a landmark United Nations climate change conference" [3] [cnbc.com]
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Why not. Usually no one really cares where something is hosted. Why Germany? Why Argentina? Why India? Why Kenya? Why Denmark? Why Mexico? Peru, France, UK, Morocco.
The UN doesn't much care for you desire to exclude people providing hosting facilities. The COP meetings have historically been hosted by literally anyone who puts their hands up. This time it's the UAE.
This isn't the FIFA world cup. They aren't sportwashing.
Nothing changes UNTIL nations pressure others (Score:2)
Gee, you think? (Score:2)
You're holding a climate summit in one of the hottest regions of the planet which is also one of the leading exporters of fossil fuel and you are seriously asking if this might be abused to promote fossil fuel?
Seriously?
I'm salivating at the chaos they'll reap. (Score:2)
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I'm curious why you think a vehicle without a gas tank would have an exploding gas tank. I also wonder if you've actually looked into this. Studies have stated that EVs are far less likely to catch fire than petrol vehicles, with petrol vehicle fires happening over 1000 times more often per mile driven, although EV fires are more fierce on the rare occasions they do happen.
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IDK about the exploding gas tanks on EVs but I can tell you that every EV I've looked at was missing its catalytic converter. Not sure how you help the environment by spewing those exhaust fumes out into the atmosphere. Is that a design flaw or a security problem at the local dealership?
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And yet the OP (I don't know if you are the same AC as the OP) was implying that EVs explode often. You are right, it's difficult to state either way definitively while most EVs are newer, although batteries are actually less likely to explode as they get older and so hold less charge, while the opposite is true of gas tanks since they spring leaks as they get older. So even without statistics the available evidence would suggest that the trope about EVs exploding is complete nonsense and nothing but petro-
Keep On Obsolescing. (Score:2)
Keep On Obsolescing.
We don't care dinosaurs.