The Environment Thread

Interesting. US data, but likely applicable to here. Urban Infill trumps other policies in greenhouse gas reduction.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Lest anyone forget, the single most impactful thing we can do to address climate change is build and live in urban infill housing. Very little benefit in switching to an EV. <a href="https://t.co/Bo1m9bosY9">pic.twitter.com/Bo1m9bosY9</a></p>&mdash; Skip Pile (@skip_sf) <a href=" ">September 11, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

bellenuit said:

the single most impactful thing we can do to address climate change is build and live in urban infill housing. Very little benefit in switching to an EV

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I question how that's calculated given that urban infill may at most reduce travel and emissions on a portion of trips whereas an EV powered by renewable energy cuts it far more drastically no matter where they're going to and from.

Smurf1976 said:

I question how that's calculated given that urban infill may at most reduce travel and emissions on a portion of trips whereas an EV powered by renewable energy cuts it far more drastically no matter where they're going to and from.

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I don't have the figures at hand, but I remember posting in some forum or other about micro-mobility (electric bikes etc) that about 80%+ trips were a few kilometres or less. Urban infill would likely have 80%+ at maybe 1 kilometre or less. But the bigger issue I believe is that EVs do nothing to eliminate expenditure on road infrastructure and hence the GHGs used in producing that infrastructure. There is also the issue of servicing say outer suburbs compared to inner city areas. The more people that live close to city centres, the less travel needed by public transport, utilities like postal services, delivery services and a host of others.

I remember reading also where NYC is one of the most energy efficient areas in the US as it takes less heating and cooling per person to heat or cool multi-storey dwellings than houses in sprawling suburbs or even rural settings beloved of many environmentalists. It should be obvious that an apartment that has only one side facing the environment requires less heating or cooling than a house that is exposed on all sides as well as the roof. Again it is not just the trips made by the resident of each style of location, but all the trips needed by everything needed to service them.

Another example. I moved from a relatively inner suburb of Perth (Floreat) to a more inner suburb (Subiaco). In Floreat I had to always drive to the local supermarket as walking was at least 30 minutes, in Subiaco I walk everywhere. My car sits in the garage perhaps 4 days a week without ever being used and we have gone from 2 cars to just one.

This is a huge deal in terms of tackling plastic pollution. Bacteria that decompose plastic in quick time.

New super-enzyme eats plastic bottles six times faster
Breakthrough that builds on plastic-eating bugs first discovered by Japan in 2016 promises to enable full recycling


A super-enzyme that degrades plastic bottles six times faster than before has been created by scientists and could be used for recycling within a year or two.

The super-enzyme, derived from bacteria that naturally evolved the ability to eat plastic, enables the full recycling of the bottles. Scientists believe combining it with enzymes that break down cotton could also allow mixed-fabric clothing to be recycled. Today, millions of tonnes of such clothing is either dumped in landfill or incinerated.

Plastic pollution has contaminated the whole planet, from the Arctic to the deepest oceans, and people are now known to consume and breathe microplastic particles. It is currently very difficult to break down plastic bottles into their chemical constituents in order to make new ones from old, meaning more new plastic is being created from oil each year.

The super-enzyme was engineered by linking two separate enzymes, both of which were found in the plastic-eating bug discovered at a Japanese waste site in 2016. The researchers revealed an engineered version of the first enzyme in 2018, which started breaking down the plastic in a few days. But the super-enzyme gets to work six times faster.

“When we linked the enzymes, rather unexpectedly, we got a dramatic increase in activity,“ said Prof John McGeehan, at the University of Portsmouth, UK. “This is a trajectory towards trying to make faster enzymes that are more industrially relevant. But it’s also one of those stories about learning from nature, and then bringing it into the lab.”

Global heating warming up 'nights faster than days'
Effect seen across much of world will have profound consequences, warn scientists

The climate crisis is heating up nights faster than days in many parts of the world, according to the first worldwide assessment of how global heating is differently affecting days and nights.

The findings have “profound consequences” for wildlife and their ability to adapt to the climate emergency, the researchers said, and for the ability of people to cool off at night during dangerous heatwaves.

The scientists compared the rises in daytime and night-time temperatures over the 35 years up to 2017. Global heating is increasing both, but they found that over more than half of the world’s land there was a difference of at least 0.25C between the day and night rises.

In two-thirds of those places, nights were warming faster than the days, particularly in Europe, west Africa, western South America and central Asia. But in some places – southern US, Mexico and the Middle East – days were warming faster.

Excellent analysis of how Australia's dams and landscape are coping with a hotter, drier climate.

Check out the pictures of dam areas changing over the years and the maps showing soil moisture.

Well worth 5 minutes of your day.
I always thoughts humming birds were cool but after seeing this story I'm now completely blown away.

This is a pretty startling story of creating your own weather.
CC will have a dramatic effect on China as well as Australia and the rest of the world. Maybe directly changing the climate will be the only option left ?

Have a Grandson at Uni doing science and there is discussion about putting up blanket shields in circling in outer space blocking the sun to cool things. Electric power directed by satellites down to the earth also.

The brains are churning while I party Lol.

Get your head around this.

I tend to think in 30 years time, we will be lamenting what ee are doing today, we are improving the air, but denuding the planrt to do it.
Sooner or later, we run out of things we can overcome with technology and finally become extinct.
We cant just keep consuming more and expect there will always be more to give.
It all becomes a case of diminishing returns IMO.
Just my thoughts.

Always worth finding a practical, constructive story that could show us a better future.

There may also be some excellent investment opportunities !!

basilio said:

Excellent analysis of how Australia's dams and landscape are coping with a hotter, drier climate.

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I could nitpick a few points, some of those dams have repeatedly filled and emptied between 2016 and 2020 as per normal given that they're only minor or at best medium storages, but no argument with the basic point that rainfall is trending down.

To the extent there's an actual problem though, it's not just about inflows but it's also about storage or rather, the lack of it.

Sydney's urban water supply dams spilled repeatedly during the period 2012 - 2016 and spilled again in 2020. To the extent there was concern about running short of water in 2019 and early 2020, that's really only because the storage capacity is inadequate with respect to demand. I say that noting that the required capacity is something that can be properly calculated, it's not someone's "belief" or anything superstitious like that.

In the case of Sydney well either increase storage or cap the population to a level somewhat lower than the present actual population. Or make use of other water sources and don't be afraid to actually operate them.

sptrawler said:

I tend to think in 30 years time, we will be lamenting what ee are doing today, we are improving the air, but denuding the planrt to do it.
Sooner or later, we run out of things we can overcome with technology and finally become extinct.
We cant just keep consuming more and expect there will always be more to give.
It all becomes a case of diminishing returns IMO.
Just my thoughts.

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Population, population. No one (except Dick Smith) gives this more than a cursory thought.

The business lobby with it's demand for more consumers are stuffing the environment, and nothing will be done about it..

SirRumpole said:

Population, population. No one (except Dick Smith) gives this more than a cursory thought.

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Part of my reasoning for having a view that consumers should insist on unrestricted water supplies, their right to drive a single occupant vehicle to and from work and to live on a full size block in the suburbs is that the dams, highways and land clearing required to make it work will force the population issue onto the agenda.

So long as we keep going down the track of less per person, all that's really doing is hiding the underlying problem meanwhile the masses are slowly but surely left worse off with congested transport, ridiculously priced land and so on.

Smurf1976 said:

Part of my reasoning for having a view that consumers should insist on unrestricted water supplies, their right to drive a single occupant vehicle to and from work and to live on a full size block in the suburbs is that the dams, highways and land clearing required to make it work will force the population issue onto the agenda.

So long as we keep going down the track of less per person, all that's really doing is hiding the underlying problem meanwhile the masses are slowly but surely left worse off with congested transport, ridiculously priced land and so on.

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Yes it is really ridiculous, even if we change all vehicles over to BEV, it will help clear the air, but with population increase the demand for vehicles increases.
This then means we have to make more generation to charge more vehicles, be it fossil fuel or renewable, we have to dig up more resources to make batteries, we have to find ways of getting rid of the toxic waste from said batteries.
The real problem is, we have to work out a way of stopping humans wanting more, or reduce the amount of humans.
Just my opinion.

I read some where recently that Musk estimates that we will soon need at least double the amount of electricity just to recharge all the cars

This comment may well have already been on ASF before but it was the first time I read it

macca said:

I read some where recently that Musk estimates that we will soon need at least double the amount of electricity just to recharge all the cars

This comment may well have already been on ASF before but it was the first time I read it

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Well the thing is, it is highly likely that the majority of cars will become BEV, the issue with that is most people will have similar usage patterns, so most will be charging at the same time and discharging at similar times.
Some will argue that they will be using solar panels on the roof to charge their cars, but at the same time others are saying the solar panels on the rooves are going to replace the power stations, the same roof can't charge the car and run the grid.
It will in reality cause a large increase in required generation, but it will also supply some electrical storage, but as I said earlier eventually we will end up having to cover everywhere with solar/wind farms or embrace nuclear. OMG I hope i don't get trolled for saying that.?

Also the amount of renewables required over the immediate future is very high anyway, add to that the push to BEV's and it becomes a huge capital expenditure, which is probably why many are calling for the Government to set targets, then the taxpayer will have to pay for incentives to meet the targets.
If not big generators will have to foot the bill to replace aging infrastructure, which they aren't keen on as will hammer profits, staring to sound like the NBN all over again.
Probably why the media keep hammering the Government to fess up more incentives, another example of business manipulation of the press IMO, it is a shame the media just doesn't tell big business to fork out and replace their own $hit.
It is also a very good example of why essential services like electricity shouldn't be privatised. ?
Just my opinion.

macca said:

I read some where recently that Musk estimates that we will soon need at least double the amount of electricity just to recharge all the cars

This comment may well have already been on ASF before but it was the first time I read it

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As an order of magnitude, if we replaced every present car (petrol, diesel, LPG or otherwise powered) with an electric car then in terms of electricity consumption at the national level we'll be adding the equivalent of another Victoria.

That's not as bad as it might sound - Victoria being the third largest state electrically after NSW (first) and Qld in second place.

On a state by state basis, the approximate increase in electricity consumption (figures are approximate) would be:

Victoria = 24%
SA = 21%
WA (south-west grid only) = 20%
NSW = 18%
Queensland = 15%
Tasmania = 8%

The devil's in the detail however since those figures are average over 24 hours per day / 365 days per year. That is, total consumption. Pretty straightforward to supply if EV's are charged at off-peak times but a major problem if significant numbers of them are charged during the existing peaks.

The major difference between Victoria and Tasmania is best explained by saying that it's far more due to present energy supply than anything to do with transport. Tasmania's per capita electricity consumption is 2.9 times that of Victoria's at present.

It's easily explained by noting the ~95% market share for electric cooking in Tasmanian homes, the 94% market share for electric and electric boosted solar / heat pump hot water and the 67% electric share of the residential space heating market (and it's over 90% in the commercial sector) plus the presence of a number of major industrial users.

In contrast gas is ubiquitous in Victoria to the point that the state has, or at least did some years ago, the highest market penetration in the world with gas supplying significantly more energy to end users than electricity and being overwhelmingly dominant for space heating, cooking and water heating. An unsurprising circumstance given the state government effectively mandates gas in new homes.

Those figures are cars only. Add trucks, buses and light commercial vehicles in actual commercial use and they go up but it's manageable so long as it's actually managed (that being the key - actually managing it).

Note those figures are approximate only - depends what assumptions are made about what sort of EV's people actually buy, whether distance traveled is the same as with a petrol car or not and so on. Also depends on how you define "car" and whether or not a commercial vehicle, eg a ute, in purely private use as a primarily passenger vehicle is counted as a "car" or not - relevant given there's rather a lot of them. So take the figures as an order of magnitude rather than precise. It depends....

Worth noting that lack of load on the system is a problem in Vic, SA and WA at times whilst too much load is a problem at times in Vic and SA. To the extent that EV charging can be done at times of low demand, the higher load would be a good thing not a bad thing from a technical perspective, especially so in SA where the situation's rather extreme at times (the entire grid-supplied load in SA, including all of Adelaide and the industries at Whyalla, Port Pirie and Olympic Dam as well as country towns etc does at times drop below the consumption of a single factory in Tasmania which says it all really - low load's as much a problem as high load in SA).

It's summer again. Bushfire season.
Last year was horrific beyond belief. This year, cross fingers, it may be better with more rain.
But lets not forget what has been happening with a climate that is continually becoming hotter with human caused global warming. (get over it..)

There is an outstanding story on the ABC news site about one families experience of the fires around Mallacoota. Well worth a reflection IMV.