Comment on Chris Martenson on VivaBarnes predicted fertilizer shortage 2 weeks ago. WSJ confirmed it today
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years agoA long time ago I did a study for my own information about the idea of "going green". I looked at 3 key industries that would have to be converted to a carbon neutral process: Ammonia, cement, and steel production.
Ammonia would have to be converted to a process that uses electrolysis to separate oxygen and hydrogen from water. My prediction at the time (around 2008) is that it would take about 30% of ALL hydroelectric, nuclear, and other renewable electricity sources on the planet at the time just to move over this one industry. Alternatively, we use 2% of natural gas production.
It really helped me understand the scope of the problem and that anyone selling solutions to us as "easy" are lying.
iamtanmay@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
First of all, I am not a Climate activist. I think temperature trend is fine, and the hysteria is over the top.
Regarding Cement and steel.... right now we just throw construction waste in landfills. Its cheaper to buy new material than hire people to sort and recycle. Steel scrap does get recycled, but steel and cement in construction waste goes en masse to landfill. Same with lumber
If we charged the environmental cost of landfills to people demolishing stuff, it would be more economical to upgrade old buildings or recycle construction materials.
If we turned off construction steel and cement factories TODAY, we still have a giant surplus of abandoned buildings that could be recycled. Steel and cement can be recycled endlessly.
We waste a lot because we are very efficient at digging stuff from the ground and making it new.
Ammonia is similar. Considering obesity ~40% and food waste ~40%, we would actually need ~50% less Ammonia if we didn't overeat and waste food.
Then there is the whole argument of eat meat or not. If you compromise and have non-ammonia meat, i.e. no animal feed only grazing, then meat would be much more expensive, but no more Ammonia powered GMO feed would be needed.
Also, turning off gas cars is dumb. Its more effective to use old vehicles instead of new electric shit.
Without switching to more renewables, we can already decarbonize a huge amount. I personally think its counterproductive. But if you seriously wanted to do it, that would be the roadmap.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
I know a lot of steel is recycled (The scrap dealer put his kids through university with some projects I've been involved in), but I'm certain it can be done better.
As for cement, there's a key step in the production of cement where the energy is required: The ingredients of cement are slaked lime, rock, sand, flyash, and admix. The energy intensive part of producing cement is the cooked lime which has water added to become slaked lime. You take limestone, bring it up to very high temperature, and it converts from a stable form to something that when added to water is very caustic, and when it cools back down it changes into a solid form. The rock and sand are the main material in cement, and the slaked lime binds it together. Flyash is a byproduct from coal plants that happens to be very useful in cement production because you can replace up to half the slaked lime with flyash that happens to be available in quantities basically for free, and it also improves the quality of the cement, making it more flowable and other stuff. Right now, the slaked lime is produced using either oil or gas kilns. I conceptualized replacing those with electric kilns so the lime is cooked using hydroelectric power. Carbon dioxide is still released in the process of cooking the limestone, but if I recall correctly it starts soaking carbon dioxide back up afterwards once it begins to set.
I suspect that recycling cement would mean taking old cement, crushing it down, adding new slaked lime, and setting it into a new mold, so although it would be "recycled", it would still require the basic material.
Completely agree with you on the old cars point, and I'd extend that to other items as well. Right to repair legislation as well as regulations specifically about eliminating "planned obsolescence" of everything is practical and would have an immediate impact on material and energy use worldwide, which is why the refusal to adopt it proves that the governments screaming climate change are full of shit. They care so much they'll collect more taxes, they care so much that they'll ban your ICE car, but they don't care so much that they'll ask their corporate overlords to make things repairable.
I don't know if I think climate change is a crisis worth worrying that much over (The earth once had 25 atmospheres of CO2 in the air, and the sun at that point was about 75% as bright as it is today, and temperatures were about the same as contemporary, which to me suggests that while it may have an effect it isn't going to turn us into Venus like some folks claim, and much of the carbon is converted to carbonates rather than something combustible), but I do know that most of the oil and coal that will ever be created has already been created, and it's a resource that exists but is consumed in the process of doing something for us, and over centuries it becomes more and more difficult to find and extract more, so we should always be keeping it in our minds that we will eventually not have a practical option to use fossil fuels.
iamtanmay@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
Govt hypocrisy reflects the voters who are uninformed and easily manipulated by media.
Activism is the pseudo-religion that appeared to fill the void from the death of religion in 1800s ("God is dead" - Nietzche). Notice, the vegans, feminists, climate activists etc are all atheists. They even say pseudo-religious things - "Extinction from climate change" vs "End of days in Christianity", "Climate Denier" vs "Blasphemer"....
Killing religion didn't kill the need for it in the human soul. It created activism instead.
Serious environmentalists and scientists need to communicate better and hold media and voters accountable for their stupidity and corruption.
sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net 2 years ago
I can sort of see where that would come from, with the pushing of rationalism which inherently removes the power from religion, people would suddenly be trying to find a universal meaning through rationalism, and because people are lazy and not very good at rationalism they would assume that these destinations actually work.
The honest truth is that we've known for hundreds of years that you can't get an ought from an is, and instead of accepting that, people have ignored it because someone was able to make a decent enough emotional argument. No wonder it ends up as religion dressed up in rationalism as a skin suit.
I expect to be very difficult to get to the next phase, which would be recognizing the amazing power of rationalism as a tool while also recognizing that it is a very poor tool for answering moral or ethical questions. You need to start with something different, and that could be emotional, and where it could be something completely different, but the one thing that you can't do is treat it as if it is scientific fact and universal.
If they stopped making that one mistake, I think the power of the religious elements of activism would drive pretty quickly. The answer for determining right and wrong shouldn't be outsourced, it requires long meditation about someone's personal convictions and further meditation to ensure that those personal convictions are internally consistent and not monstrous. Maybe part of the reason that even at higher levels activism turns into religion is that people just don't realize or don't want to realize the truth.
iamtanmay@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
Wow, thanks for the insights ! Yes you are right.I studied Materials Science, so I knew some basics, but I was out of my depth. After reading your comment, I went and checked some papers on the current state of recycling cement/concrete: ( https://booksc.eu/book/72773009/caa442 https://www.archdaily.com/933616/is-it-possible-to-recycle-concrete https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/77240 )
The papers say that concrete can be upto 90% recycled when mixed with fresh material, and 2 years old cement can be made into a paste and is comparable to fresh one. Instead of fresh lime as you said, they used CaO slag from steel production for good workability.
As for the energy requirement, it seems that ~450C would be needed. This could use solar heating in sunny regions. Giant mirrors and lenses. I imagine a upfront cost and then small running costs. A cement factory also needs a upfront cost, but has a large running cost. Input would also be cheaper for the recycler. They would need more electricity to run the grinding and separation of rubble, but this can be compared to the cost and energy needed to dig up and transport aggregate.
We increased 1C in past 50 years. Its good, because poor people are a bit less cold. No one can predict if this trend will continue the next 100 years, but 2C increase in avg temperatures is fine. Predictors of super events have no proof.
They always link disasters to theories after the fact. Just last week, they revised ALL climate models when they found Europe's medieval mini ice age was not due to humans. Modellers have a strong record of WRONG predictions for past decades.