So, Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez wants to totally ban fossil fuels by 2035 to save the planet. Is it possible? Let's start looking at why we use fossil fuels to begin with and what our alternatives are. Why do we use fossil fuels? Because they contain a lot of energy in a relatively small volume. Getting a 4000 lb car (the average weight of a car in 2010) moving at sixty-five miles per hour takes a lot of energy. Try pushing a car for a bit to see exactly how much energy it takes. Heating homes and businesses takes a lot of energy as anyone who's ever cut firewood for heat can attest. Generating electricity on a large scale takes a lot of energy. Fossil fuels are a good, cheap, efficient source of that energy.
What are our alternatives? I've been following the alternative energy field since the first energy crisis back in the seventies, so I have a fairly good grasp on the various pros and cons of the alternatives. The "ban all fossil fuels" crowd seems to feel that solar photovoltaic and wind power can replace the use of fossil fuels. At present solar photovoltaic and wind power do very, very little to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Why is that? It's not because we aren't trying to exploit those technologies. It's because the sun doesn't shine at peak brightness and the wind doesn't blow at optimal speeds twenty-four hours a day every day of the year. Solar photovoltaic panels peak their energy output for just a few hours in the afternoon on fully sunny days. For most of the day they are generating far less than peak output, and in fact deliver virtually no output from sundown to sunrise. Peak energy consumption in the US occurs when solar photovoltaics are at their least efficient. Wind power is generally unpredictable in much of the country as the winds either don't blow enough, or blow too hard.. To say the supply from those sources is sporadic is an understatement. If you eliminate all fossil fuel energy generation, you end up leaving people in the dark and cold for very, very long periods.
"We can store that energy from the peak generation time and release it when we need it!" Not really. There's talk of building massive lithium ion battery warehouses to store excess solar and wind power. There are multiple problems with this idea however. To begin with, lithium ion battery design is one of those areas where science/engineering and technology aren't perfect as nearly every manufacturer who's ever made anything with a lithium ion battery will be only too happy to tell you. Lithium ion battery design is one of those areas where its maybe 95% science/engineering and 5% voodoo. Get on the wrong side of the voodoo and you've got big problems. "We'll get on the the right side and design safe batteries." Maybe they can, but they're talking about housing millions, if not billions of cells in each warehouse and all it takes is one bad cell and the whole facility can go up in flames. The expense of such a lithium ion battery warehouse would be enormous also. Add in the fact that you then need lots and lots more solar panels and windmills to generate excess power to store and the costs become absurd. There's talk of other means of storing the energy, but the technology just isn't there at this time. Storing massive amounts of energy until needed just isn't practical at this time.
"Well then, we'll keep using other means when needed but mostly use photovoltaics and wind power when it's available." This ignores that fact that you don't just flip a switch and turn on a power plant. It would be nice if you could, but that's not how power is generated. To make electricity today, vast amounts of water are flashed to superheated steam that's then vented through a turbine that then turns a generator and that's how power is generated. That steam is then cooled, condensed back into water vapor and recirculated through the system again and again. You can't just flip a switch and instantly have vast quantities of super-heated steam. It takes time to create the volume of steam required.
To get a power plant whether it's oil-fired, coal-fired, natural gas-fired, or a nuclear plant, from cold to fully operational is a multi-hour process. To avoid blackouts lasting hours at a time, power companies keep their standby power plants up and running, just as though they were generating power, so when they need the power, it's there. This is often called "spinning reserve." So, even with solar and wind generating power, somewhere behind them, hidden away in the distance, is a conventional power plant chugging along, burning the same fuel (or nearly so) as it would be if it was the one generating the power. Essentially it's like driving around in an electric car, but being followed everywhere by a gas-powered car just in case you need it. You look impressive using the electric car, but the net effect on your CO2 emissions is nearly zero since the fossil fuel powered car is right behind you the whole time. If you're serious about lowering CO2 emissions without living in the cold and dark, then nuclear power is the only real alternative at this time. No one's building new nuclear plants at this time however. If you truly want to end the use of fossil fuels by 2035, it'll require the building of a massive number of nuclear power plants. Generally speaking, the far left is opposed to nuclear power.
So, why do they want to end the use of fossil fuels? They say it's because of the CO2 released by the burning of fossil fuels. So, here's an interesting question, what if human generated CO2 isn't the cause of global warming/climate change? "What else could be the cause of the rise in temperatures?" The fact that we're consuming more BTU's every year could play a rather large role in it. One government web site states that we're now consuming three times the BTU's we did back in the fifties. Let's say that back in 1950 you entered a building, found they had a 50,000 BTU heater running flat out, 24/7. You took a temperature reading and left. You come back in 2019 and notice there are now three 50,000 BTU heaters running flat out 24/7 and discover the temperature is higher. (Not surprising to most of us. Three heaters would generate three times the heat of one.) Most people will look at those extra heaters as the problem. The CO2 fretters would instead look to the ceiling and wonder what changes had happened to the ceiling to trap in and reflect back the heat. "Yes, yes, I know lots more heat is being generated, but that's not the issue. Something's trapping it and reflecting it back." To most of us that extra heat being generated is kind of the issue. More heat generated tends to lead to higher temperatures whether anything's reflecting that heat back to Earth or not.
"We know CO2 levels are higher now than they've ever been!" How do you know that? "Ice core samples prove it beyond a doubt! There are tiny air bubbles trapped in Arctic ice that when tested show lower levels of CO2 dating back 800,000 years." There is a slight issue there. There are sea ice algae that live in the ice. Algae breathes in CO2 and exhales oxygen. Unless you know those samples have been algae free since they were formed thousands of years ago, you can draw no conclusion from those samples. Algae is not an easy thing to contain. It will grow and thrive as long as it's demands are met. It needs food, typically a nitrate of some sort, CO2, and light. All of which were readily available in the sea ice the experts are relying on to determine the amount of historic CO2. If any sea ice algae ever came into contact with those "pristine" air bubbles trapped in the ice (and it's almost certain some did) then the algae would have extracted CO2 from the bubble and replaced it with oxygen. It's what algae does, it breathes in CO2 and exhales oxygen. Ironically enough, one of the methods our climate change alarmists want to use to scrub CO2 emissions is algae farming, since algae is so efficient at consuming CO2. The fact that those "pristine" air bubbles trapped in sea ice were likely altered by sea ice algae at some point is largely ignored by the climate change alarmists.
"We know temperatures are higher now than they've ever been!" How do you know that?
"We can measure the ratio of water isotopes to determine what temperatures were previously." They kind of forget to mention that we've been mass producing the water isotopes they're measuring for decades now for scientific and industrial use and since they're water, they're just dumped down the drains and out into the water treatment plants and ultimately the oceans when the users are done with the water. Some isotopes are so inexpensive to mass produce that they're sold for as little as a dollar per gallon when bought in thousand gallon or larger volumes. We've been altering the natural balance of those isotopes for decades now, so their effectiveness at determining past temperatures may be less accurate than they'd like us to believe.
"We can measure the ratio of water isotopes to determine what temperatures were previously." They kind of forget to mention that we've been mass producing the water isotopes they're measuring for decades now for scientific and industrial use and since they're water, they're just dumped down the drains and out into the water treatment plants and ultimately the oceans when the users are done with the water. Some isotopes are so inexpensive to mass produce that they're sold for as little as a dollar per gallon when bought in thousand gallon or larger volumes. We've been altering the natural balance of those isotopes for decades now, so their effectiveness at determining past temperatures may be less accurate than they'd like us to believe.
So, what can we do? A better question is, do we need to do anything? Humans live everywhere on this planet from the hottest desert to the Arctic Circle. We're kind of an adaptable species. "But the sea level will rise!" Yeah, but it really hasn't risen a lot has it? I've lived across the street from a meadow/swamp for sixty years and the water level is just about where its always been. (It may even be a tick lower than it was in the past.) Nature finds a way to balance things out. For example, I live near (some maps show me atop) the Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer in Southern New Jersey. This aquifer reportedly has 1,000 wells tapping it, pumping out 400 gallons per minute per well. That's 400,000 gallons per minute total or about 576 million gallons of water per day. Those big water tanks you see in nearly every town in South Jersey are fed from that aquifer, and yes, the pumps run pretty much full speed 24/7 to keep those tanks full. Much of that water finds its way to waste water treatment plants where it's treated and then dumped into rivers, streams, the bays and eventually back to the ocean. This is from one aquifer under just the southern half of New Jersey. We're reportedly taking 576 million gallons of fresh water from it each day (enough so that the ground above it is depressing) and dumping much/most of that into the ocean, via the rivers, bays and streams, and have been doing so for decades. For those keeping track at home that's 210,240,000,000 gallons of water per year, from one aquifer in about half of one state. When you look at all of the water we pump from aquifers each year nationally (and internationally) and look at how much of that reaches the oceans, or should anyway, we should all probably be knee deep in water.
And it's not just water from aquifers. I use rain barrels to collect the water that runs off my roof for watering my garden. It's pretty impressive how much water you can catch very easily. Now look at storm sewers. Nearly all of the rain water that falls in cities or on paved roads ends up in storm sewers instead of the ground. Where does it go once it hits those storm sewers? Into the rivers and streams, then to the bays and then to the ocean. Instead of those billions, if not trillions of gallons of water from each storm soaking into the land, we're rerouting it to the oceans.
So, why aren't we all knee deep in water? Nature adjusts. As the sea level rises soil that was dry becomes saturated and good old gravity pulls on that moisture in the soil that wasn't there before and drags it down to help refill the aquifers we're draining. You're not just dumping water on top of the soil, but saturating the soil when sea levels rise. Unless that soil is impenetrable, that fresh water atop the soil works it's way down through the soil, saturating it, going deeper and deeper until it can go no further, typically ending in an aquifer. Gravity is kind of relentless in that manner. The Earth isn't a lined swimming pool where every drop of water added raises the water level, but much more sponge-like than the alarmists would like you to believe. It can, and does, absorb a whole lot of water. Nature finds a way to compensate.
How else could nature compensate for the climate change? A longer growing season from a warmer planet means plants will grow longer and plants breathe in CO2 reducing the impact of any increase in CO2. Melting glaciers and the dumping of vast amounts of rainwater/water from aquifers will lower the salinity of the oceans, but when you lower the salinity you also lower the freezing point of seawater making it more likely to freeze creating new glaciers. Ocean water has a lower freezing point (28 degrees Fahrenheit currently for sea water) than fresh water (32 degrees). Since the climate change alarmists are talking about a temperature swing of just a few degrees, any reduction in the salinity of the oceans (which varies already depending on location) would make the ocean water more likely to freeze despite the rise in temperature.
"The lowering of the ocean's pH from acid rain will affect sea life!" When the oceans get more acidic more of the old coral structures are dissolved which raises the pH of the water to counteract the increasing acidity. Aquarium keepers use this principle to raise the pH of their fish tanks. Add a bit of coral sand/fragments to an acidic aquarium and the Ph rises. Nature likes things to stay in balance and has ways to compensate. Volcanic eruptions release tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, but nature compensates.
"But the coral reefs will die!" And new ones will form. Coral spawns release billions of baby corals, the vast majority of which never find a suitable place to live. As ocean waters warm, it creates new suitable places for them to live as it's killing off the old places where they lived. Water that was too cold previously may no longer be too cold now.
Let's assume that we do everything the most extreme climate changers want done. We ban all fossil fuel use. We deal with the cold, heat and dark in other, new, creative ways that currently don't exist. We all ride bicycles, walk, or find other ways to travel. Will it end human's impact on the climate? No. We're all 98.6 degree (or so) radiators radiating our body heat out into the atmosphere. We're all exhaling CO2. Unless or until the median air temperature is exactly the same as our body temp and we figure out a way to breathe without releasing CO2, humans will always have an impact on the climate. But, nature adjusts.
"Animals will go extinct!" Just as they always have throughout history and long, long before humans ever appeared. New species will evolve and arise to fill the void, just as they have throughout history. The climate of Earth has changed many times throughout history and life always survives in some form. Some species go extinct and new species rise to take their place. It's the way the world works. The newish myth that the climate has been stable until now, is just that, a myth. The climate has never been stable. In all likelihood it never will be.
"But we've got to do something!" If you live in a colder part of the country and you want to do something to limit CO2 emissions, then passive solar is your friend. That free heat from the sun can dramatically lower your CO2 emissions by creating heat needed for your home at no cost in terms of CO2 emissions. You'll still need alternate heating methods for the less sunny times, but you can conserve a whole lot of BTUs with passive solar and excess heat can be stored in barrels of water or thermal mass/masonry that will then slowly radiate that heat out during cooler periods. You may notice that passive solar isn't mentioned much these days. That's because there's no giant passive solar lobby throwing around buckets of cash. The solar photovoltaic industry and wind industry have huge lobbies however so they get the attention and cash. The fact that they achieve nothing, or next to nothing to reduce CO2 emissions is largely ignored while passive solar actually works to reduce CO2 emissions. Gee, it's almost like those touting solar photovoltaic and wind power are being bought and manipulated by the solar photovoltaic and wind industry. But no, that can't be right. They're the good guys! The fossil fuel industry are the bad guys! Yeah. Believe that if you want to.
We've reached a point where everything that happens is blamed on climate change. Hurricanes are only occurring because of climate change. Flooding is due to climate change. Drought is due to climate change. A colder than normal winter is due to climate change. A warmer than normal winter is due to climate change. An increase in allergies or asthma is due to climate change, and much, much more. "It's just a disaster and no one wants to do anything! What is wrong with you people?" Well, it turns out some of us truly understand the issues involved and know there's no easy solution while others buy into whatever certain alarmists are saying.
There's a percentage of the population that always sees disaster coming and think that they and only they can see it and can't understand why the rest of us are so blind. Some of us aren't blind. Some of us live in reality and not a state induced by panic. In the real world, climate change is occurring and has occurred since the dawn of the planet. Climate is not, has never been, and in all likelihood never will be stable. Do we impact the climate? Of course. Can we eliminate that impact? No. Can we lessen that impact? Yes, but at this time, only by using more nuclear and passive solar, two options that are largely ignored these days. Everything else still relies on fossil fuels, or is just a fantasy. And for the record, I'm not bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, I'm just a person with common sense. Sadly, there aren't a lot of people out there these days with common sense.
In my sixty years, I've seen us warned that we're entering a new ice age. "Glaciers are growing and will consume our northernmost cities if we don't act soon!" There were plans circulating for a while to build massive manmade mountains to the north of our major cities. These manmade mountains would have steel ridges designed to shatter the advancing glaciers and the valleys between the mountains would have smaller peaks with steel ridges to break the glaciers into still smaller pieces until finally small enough pieces would be pushed to the cities that could then be melted to provide drinking water for the cities. Those advocating the plans insisted we had to act now or it would be too late. Yeah, not so much. For a while the scientific community was convinced the Gulf Stream was moving northwards at a rapid pace and New Jersey would have Miami-like weather by the year 2000 (or so.) The temperature is in the twenties as I write this, so yeah, that didn't happen. Way, way back there were plans to build a giant rocket engine in the desert Southwest that would be fueled by the Texas oil fields to fly the planet into a warmer/colder orbit as needed, or to steer the planet around an asteroid, or even move the planet away from the sun and to a new solar system should the need arise. Unless I've missed it on the news, that's never happened. In more recent times switching light bulbs was going to save the planet. Yeah. Right.
Humans have an inherent need to believe in things. It used to be a God or Gods. Nowadays it's often a political belief or cause. Changing a belief is nearly impossible among the true believers, but sometimes you just have to try. The true believers in humans causing climate change and the end of the planet unless we act now will denounce me as a science denying troglodyte. They'll say I'm bought by the oil industry. I'm not. Many wish to believe that climate change is all our fault and we can fix it. Climate change has gone on forever and while we play a role in it currently, we can't stop it, change it materially, or influence it. Those who believe we can, well, they're going to be seriously disappointed. "But I know we can do it! It just takes a small change! Those LED lights on your appliances are energy vampires! If we just unplugged everything it would fix it all!" Uh, no. There is no magic answer. The things that could truly work to reduce CO2 emissions are nuclear power (no CO2 emissions) and passive solar. Nothing else has the reliability necessary, or the capability necessary. And that's assuming human generated CO2 is the only reason we have climate change. It's not.
The climate has been in constant flux since the creation of the planet, long before the first human ever stood upright. The true believers in eliminating fossil fuel use will say I'm wrong. The reality is there's no other option to the use of fossil fuels right now. Only nuclear and passive solar truly work to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and they're not popular options for the end fossil fuel crowd. They live in a fantasy world where something should work because they want it to work. I live in the real world. Solar photovoltaic and wind power just don't work to reduce CO2 emissions. Every watt of electricity produced by such methods is currently being backed up by, you've got it, fossil fuel powered plants that are churning away just as though they were generating the power. It is truly like driving an electric car, but being followed everywhere by a gas powered car. You look impressive, but you're not achieving anything.
The talk of eliminating the use of fossil fuels by 2035 is insane. It's impossible. It's absurd and you truly have to question the sanity of anyone who thinks it's possible. It's not. If we started building new nuclear plants to replace all of the fossil fuel powered plants we'd reduce the use of fossil fuels by the year 2035, assuming we could get them permitted and built by then, but that's the only real option. The reality is though that no one wants to build nuclear power plants these days. We're just sixteen years from 2035 and expecting to be able to eliminate all use of fossil fuels by then isn't just a pipe dream, it's insanity. "We'll invent a way to do it!" Uh, no. you can't just wish things into being because you wan it. The world doesn't work that way.
