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In atmospheric terms drawdown is that point in time at which greenhouse gases peak and begin to decline on a year-to-year basis.
But what is a gigaton? To appreciate its magnitude, imagine 400,000 Olympic-sized pools. That is about a billion metric tons of water, or 1 gigaton. Now multiply that by 36, yielding 14,400,000 pools. Thirty-six billion tons is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in 2016.
When considering the scale of benefits, the potential profits and savings, and the investments needed if conditions remain the same, the costs become negligible. The payback period for most solutions is relatively short in time.
We are, in writer Jeremy Leggett’s words, squarely in the middle of the greatest energy transition in history. The era of fossil fuels is over, and the only question now is when the new era will be fully upon us. Economics make its arrival inevitable: Clean energy is less expensive.
In the United States, the wind energy potential of just three states—Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas—would be sufficient to meet electricity demand from coast to coast.
Two issues:
1) storage
2) efficient long-haul distribution
The International Monetary Fund estimates that the fossil fuel industry received more than $5.3 trillion in direct and indirect subsidies in 2015; that is $10 million a minute, or about 6.5 percent of global GDP.
Ongoing cost reduction will soon make wind energy the least expensive source of installed electricity capacity, perhaps within a decade. Current costs are 2.9 cents per kilowatt-hour for wind, 3.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for natural gas combined-cycle plants, and 5.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for utility-scale solar.
When coal is burned to boil water to turn a turbine to generate electricity, two-thirds of the energy is dispersed as waste heat and in-line losses.
About a fifth of the earth’s internal heat is primordial, lingering from the planet’s formation 4.6 billion years ago. The balance is generated by ongoing radioactive decay of potassium, thorium, and uranium isotopes in the crust and mantle.
When their entire life cycle is taken into account, solar farms curtail 94 percent of the carbon emissions that coal plants emit and completely eliminate emissions of sulfur and nitrous oxides, mercury, and particulates.
Our analysis assumes rooftop solar PV can grow from .4 percent of electricity generation globally to 7 percent by 2050. That growth can avoid 24.6 gigatons of emissions. We assume an implementation cost of $1,883 per kilowatt, dropping to $627 per kilowatt by 2050. Over three decades, the technology could save $3.4 trillion in home energy costs.
Despite slow adoption in recent years, this analysis assumes CSP could rise to 4.3 percent of world electricity generation by 2050, avoiding 10.9 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions.
What happened to this book’s opening claims of taking a “conservative approach” to its forecasts?!? This 1100% increase by 2050 doesn’t smell “conservative” to me.
This analysis assumes all biomass is derived from perennial bioenergy feedstock—not forests, annuals, or waste—and replaces coal and natural gas in electricity production.
The article plainly states:
A) that virtually all the biomass plants built/planned in the USA are dependent on cutting down trees; and
B) the largest users of biomass outside the US, do so with almost 100% usage of trees.
It is absolute HORSESHIT to imagine a biomass scenario that uses NO TREES for its fuel. Also lauding “progress” in Brasil in this front is laughable considering the clear-cutting of the Amazon jungle they are doing to fuel it.
We assume its share of global electricity generation will grow to 13.6 percent by 2030, but slowly decline to 12 percent by 2050. With a longer lifetime than fossil fuel plants resulting in fewer facilities overall, installation of nuclear power plants could cost an additional $900 million, despite the high implementation cost of $4,457 per kilowatt. Net operating savings over thirty years could reach $1.7 trillion. This scenario could result in 16.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided.
One hundred solutions are featured in Drawdown. Of those, almost all are no-regrets solutions society would want to pursue regardless of their carbon impact because they have many beneficial social, environmental, and economic effects. Nuclear is a regrets solution, and regrets have already occurred at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Rocky Flats, Kyshtym, Browns Ferry, Idaho Falls, Mihama, Lucens, Fukushima Daiichi, Tokaimura, Marcoule, Windscale, Bohunice, and Church Rock. Regrets include tritium releases, abandoned uranium mines, mine-tailings pollution, spent nuclear waste disposal, illicit
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That is one reason visitors to the Eiffel Tower can now find vertical axis turbines on its second level, four hundred feet above the ground, overlooking the Champ de Mars. Their design enables them to utilize wind coming from any direction, producing electricity to power the tower’s restaurants, shop, and exhibits.
In today’s parlance, this is probably the first infographic ever created, another first by Humboldt.
Inventor of the infographic — Alexander von Humboldt. ✔️
If 2,250 tons of trash were incinerated daily, the annual emissions would be 5 tons of lead, 17 tons of mercury, 580 pounds of cadmium, 2,248 tons of nitrous oxide, 853 tons of sulfur dioxide, 777 tons of hydrogen chloride, 87 tons of sulfuric acid, 18 tons of fluorides, and 98 tons of particulate matter small
This is the MOST DUBIOUS number here.
If 2,250 tons of trash were incinerated daily, the annual emissions would be 5 tons of lead, 17 tons of mercury, 580 pounds of cadmium, 2,248 tons of nitrous oxide, 853 tons of sulfur dioxide, 777 tons of hydrogen chloride, 87 tons of sulfuric acid, 18 tons of fluorides, and 98 tons of particulate matter small
Bullshit. How could the output tonnage be greater than the input?
Data shows high recycling rates tend to go hand in hand with high rates of waste-to-energy use, but some argue recycling could be higher in the absence of burning trash.
Public health is particularly an issue in China and East Asia. That is where waste-to-energy is seeing its most rapid market growth, but also where pollution regulation and enforcement are weak.
During John Muir’s first summer exploring the Sierra Nevada, he wrote in his journal, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
The emissions reductions from this solution are counted in the variable renewable solutions that could not reach their full potential without it.
So those other solutions’ projected benefits have this “complicated and diverse” solution silently baked into them as n this book. Good to know.
Livestock emissions, including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, are responsible for an estimated 18 to 20 percent of greenhouse gases annually, a source second only to fossil fuels.
If you add to livestock all other food-related emissions—from farming to deforestation to food waste—what we eat turns out to be the number one cause of global warming.
YASS!
Michael Pollan famously simplified the conundrum of eating: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” “Mostly plants” is the key, although some argue all. Shifting to a diet rich in plants is a demand-side solution to global warming that runs counter to the meat-centric, highly processed, often-excessive Western diet broadly on the rise today.
If cattle were their own nation, they would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
On average, adults require 50 grams of protein each day, but in 2009, the average per capita consumption was 68 grams per day—36 percent higher than necessary. In the United States and Canada, the average adult consumes more than 90 grams of protein per day.
World Health Organization, only 10 to 15 percent of one’s daily calories need to come from protein, and a diet primarily of plants can easily meet that threshold.
Business-as-usual emissions could be reduced by as much as 70 percent through adopting a vegan diet and 63 percent for a vegetarian diet (which includes cheese, milk, and eggs). The model also calculates a reduction in global mortality of 6 to 10 percent.
Yotam Ottolenghi, restaurateur and author of Plenty.
Initiatives such as Meatless Monday and VB6 (vegan before six p.m.),
it is also necessary to reframe meat as a delicacy, rather than a staple. First and foremost, that means ending price-distorting government subsidies, such as those benefiting the U.S. livestock industry,
In 2013, $53 billion went to livestock subsidies in the thirty-five countries affiliated with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development alone.
As Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has said, making the transition to a plant-based diet may well be the most effective way an individual can stop climate change.
Recent research suggests he is right: Few climate solutions of this magnitude lie in the hands of individuals or are as close as the dinner plate. •
If 50 percent of the world’s population restricts their diet to a healthy 2,500 calories per day and reduces meat consumption overall, we estimate at least 26.7 gigatons of emissions could be avoided from dietary change alone. If avoided deforestation from land use change is included, an additional 39.3 gigatons of emissions could be avoided, making healthy, plant-rich diets one of the most impactful solutions at a total of 66 gigatons reduced.
Yet a third of the food raised or prepared does not make it from farm or factory to fork.
