Posts by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
(DIR) Post #AQ9tufBKt26OUQOoL2 by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2022-12-01T09:29:13Z
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@aaronpettman "Of course, you can prevent this from ever happening by not allowing your Samsung TV to connect to the internet and instead purchasing a separate streaming device to access different services. This does render a major advantage of owning a Smart TV useless, though. "Smart TVs typically have a very short security supported lifespan. Whereas the basic hardware can last for easily 10 years. I'll always use a TV as a display and connect something more serviceable to it if I need streaming etc.
(DIR) Post #AQ9tuhYo2k43rnOaCO by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2022-12-01T09:30:03Z
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@aaronpettman As I've pointed out before, we need laws about this. It's a significant part of the wider e-waste and cybersecurity problems.
(DIR) Post #AQ9tujpXbUdguHEyYq by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2022-12-01T09:31:45Z
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@aaronpettman Plus didn't they get caught centrally reporting filenames from any USB stick you play video off? I don't trust consumer electronics with an internet connection.
(DIR) Post #ARncyjBsZammJnacFs by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-01-19T11:26:17Z
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@itnewsbot People have also talked about reusing degraded EV batteries for grid storage. I wonder what the status of that is? Here's an article mostly on that: at least one company is doing it.https://www.hivepower.tech/blog/is-recycling-ev-batteries-for-grid-energy-storage-a-sustainable-planWorryingly it also claims that "cobalt is the only profitable constituent" for recycling - in other words, lithium remains so cheap (as of 2021) that *modern* batteries (which do not contain cobalt) cannot be recycled profitably (even though there is some commercial recycling). Hopefully prices have risen enough that this is no longer an issue but if not we'll need a legal mandate or subsidy.
(DIR) Post #ARsPYSO468l13oEQpk by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-01-21T18:49:39Z
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Climate life hack: soya or oatmilk hot chocolate.I'm not yet able to go fully vegan, because of allergy issues, autism issues and other stresses.However, since I go for a hot chocolate with family several days a week, one thing I can do is look at milk alternatives.A well-made soya hot chocolate is just as nice as a cow's milk one, but it doesn't work if it's too hot, so they vary somewhat. Oat milk is promising but not sure yet.
(DIR) Post #AS9PcOTbsljVmH1O5Y by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-01-29T23:40:56Z
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@vriska As another middle aged male whose sexuality is in a cloud of quantum uncertainty... Fuck toxic gender expectations! 😀 😂 (And yeah, obviously I've picked up some, but I can try)
(DIR) Post #AS9Pyo0FekA9JjyZJA by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-01-25T17:12:46Z
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We dig up 15 billion tonnes of fossil fuels each year. The peak demand for minerals for the transition to renewable power will be around 43 million tonnes.Yes, renewables, energy efficiency, storage, some limited number of EVs and the rest require some mining, and we need to clean up our act on mining, both environmentally and in terms of respecting indigenous rights. And we need to recycle and reuse *much* more.But the sheer volume of fossil fuel extraction is *much* larger than the materials we need to dig up for the transition.Claims that e.g. EVs will be damaging because of mining are exaggerated. IMHO we will want to reduce the number of vehicles overall, and we know how to do that (more buses for a start!). But if you're concerned about the impact of lithium mining, have a look at the impact of coal mining and oil extraction too!Let's not repeat fossil fuel industry propaganda disguised as green concern, even to make a political point about consumption. There is no path to sustainability that doesn't require *some* further mining, but stopping using fossil fuels will eliminate the vast bulk of the problem, and we can expect further improvement over time.Great article here.https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/mining-low-carbon-vs-fossil
(DIR) Post #AS9R4akdwG1huRzx0C by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-01-29T23:57:19Z
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@fcktheworld587 Well, there's that and avoiding lamb and beef, which I've been doing for some time as they're the most damaging meats. Hopefully I'll make further some progress this year.
(DIR) Post #ASCutekYJPCnDyXMoq by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-01-31T16:15:16Z
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@itnewsbot Interesting that numbers like $20/MWh are floated here. UK CfDs are around £50/MWh ($60/MWh) for wind (both onshore and offshore), which is considered very cheap compared to fossil gas. Presumably there are other costs here? I believe the idea was that the $20/MWh for wind includes capital costs and the $20/MWh for coal does not? Or are they both operational figures - I can't imagine wind operating costs are that high?I can believe the US has much more sunlight than the UK, even in colder states, but there's no obvious reason why wind would be cheaper in the US? Financing issues maybe?
(DIR) Post #ASNASG8WFr2qvdA2fA by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-03T13:04:59Z
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@breadandcircuses There is a grain of truth in it in that natural processes *should* cause temperatures to fall very slowly as long as emissions have *stopped*, not just peaked.Somebody posted a graph about that, but I can't find it right now.Of course this assumes that the major sinks aren't compromised. It's one end of a range of climate models, with the other end being even more apocalyptic. Supposedly it does take into account short term feedbacks.Even with this happy ending, it will take centuries to see any major improvement.Much better to stop emissions immediately.The other sense in which this is definitely true is El Nino. There's a good chance of an El Nino soon, and that *will* cause very high temperatures and related chaos in the years with an El Nino, less so in the La Nina years.But bear in mind that *last year was a La Nina*! And we still had plenty of climate chaos, including new temperature records, floods in Pakistan, etc.
(DIR) Post #ASNASHPDXFzorhytKS by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-03T13:28:11Z
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@breadandcircuses Yeah. For instance, most of the long term drawdown is from *land based* sinks. Many of which may be taken out by feedbacks, e.g. even if we stop deforestation it may yet be too late for the Amazon. Equally there are worrying signs on the ocean.I believe such models are the relatively conservative IPCC consensus. And they're still scary.Whereas at the other end you have the Hansen preprint. Which is horrifying.
(DIR) Post #ASNASIniLfBZByRy9Q by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-03T14:02:56Z
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@breadandcircuses @rob_cornelius Well even the IPCC consensus ignores "long term" feedbacks. So you're probably looking at 3-4C long term in the good case. But we don't care about long term because we hope it's thousands of years in the future.Whereas the Hansen preprint says 3C this century and it'll keep going up to 5C, and eventually 10C. At which point, whether we live on Earth or Mars is a bit of a moot point, we probably won't be living on either. And in practice worse since that's assuming immediate cessation of emissions. We probably need geoengineering even if the consensus view is right, but we definitely need it if Hansen is right. Which is problematic, as we've discussed elsewhere. 😐 Equally, the outcome could be slightly better than the mainstream models. But probably not much better given how far we've already got.
(DIR) Post #ASNASJpWWQE8NsIvbs by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-03T14:07:56Z
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@rob_cornelius @breadandcircuses I have a lot of superficial sympathy for doomers. Unfortunately when it turns into "therefore we shouldn't mine any more minerals to build renewables" I have to fundamentally disagree with them and block them. Sometimes it does.A fool's hope is better than no hope. Keep fighting for every 0.1C.
(DIR) Post #ASNASKskbuP1eAp1HM by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-03T23:26:49Z
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@nerdbear @rob_cornelius @breadandcircuses Tell that to disabled Twitter users with mobility problems.We can and should make cities more accessible to wheelchairs etc. But in the transition period we will need EVs, and I don't want to commit to *no* cars.Equally, many workers e.g. plumbers have to carry equipment, and therefore need either a car or a van.Plausibly we could get to a point where personal cars are severely restricted. But it requires solving a bunch of other problems simultaneously. And there's plenty we can do to move towards that goal, e.g. more funding for buses, restrictions on parking, more bike lanes.Apart from that, I would point to this thread:https://climatejustice.social/@MatthewToad42/109763542903316727One lithium mine produces 30% of global demand. The mine is smaller than a typical coal mine which produces enough coal for one power plant. I had a picture but can't immediately find it. We dig up 15GT of fossil fuels every year; IEA estimates the minerals needed for the transition at 43MT/year at the peak (see links above).Lithium is not the problem. Nor is cobalt (modern lithium batteries don't use it). But I agree we need fewer cars. Both to speed up the transition and to make cities more livable.
(DIR) Post #ASNASLNalF4ZBpFeLo by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-03T23:30:23Z
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@nerdbear @rob_cornelius @breadandcircuses As far as energy this is also wrong. I believe the total electricity used in a year increases by around 30%. We'll need some more for heat pumps though.But renewables are cheap and relatively clean, and there are many other ways to reduce usage.Storage is solvable. One study suggests that vehicles batteries can provide the entire short term storage requirement for the grid, without harming the batteries, though I'm a bit skeptical on that one. Certainly we can reuse "spent" EV batteries in grid storage. That doesn't fully solve the problem - we still need long term storage - but it's a start.However, reaching sustainability happens faster if we have fewer cars on the roads, which has many other benefits. One of the fastest interventions for this is improving bus services.TLDR: severely restrict cars, but in the short to medium term we will need some. And lithium *probably* isn't a big problem.
(DIR) Post #ASNASOlo9fE3hnbX0q by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-04T17:11:18Z
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@rob_cornelius @nerdbear @breadandcircuses Rich brats are not the majority of the car problem, in spite of shouting the loudest and having political connections.There are lots of people who drive because it's actually cheaper than public transport. *Those* drivers, who can't afford to switch to EVs because they drive cheap second hand cars and don't have dedicated parking, are potentially reachable via improvements in bus services, which could be deployed very quickly at modest cost.Also, while densification is probably necessary, especially in the US's sprawling car-centric cities, it requires considerable resources and time, because you have to build a lot of new buildings, roads etc.On the other hand, converting a 6 lane road to a 2 lane road, bus lanes and segregated cycle tracks, is relatively cheap ecologically since you don't need to knock down any buildings?That requires political courage. But several major European cities have done it successfully.
(DIR) Post #ASNASPuhu3wFFgm9WS by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-04T17:30:36Z
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@nerdbear @rob_cornelius @breadandcircuses You need sticks as well as carrots. There will be resistance to that. But it's best to start with the carrots.
(DIR) Post #ASNASR5jWYLuuAwTLc by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-05T11:25:57Z
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@nerdbear @rob_cornelius @breadandcircuses I agree that the strategy depends on where you are.The above strategy is mainly for areas with loads of huge roads. Most American cities, for instance.Some bigger European cities have already been through this transformation. Amsterdam has. Paris has in part. Other people have posted links about this.For smaller cities and towns, for instance where I live, where we have tend to have a more healthy ratio of buildings to roads, there's less low hanging fruit. But there are also almost no bicycles, because of the chicken-and-egg problem: nobody cycles, therefore traffic isn't used to bicycles, therefore it's not safe to cycle, therefore nobody cycles.One thing we can do is converting on-street parking into cycle lanes. But that is consistently opposed by shopkeepers who assume, incorrectly, that everyone arrives by car.Another thing we can do is improving buses, which are generally speaking expensive and infrequent. Even if there isn't space for a bus lane through most of the town, it's still often worth putting money into buses.One size fits all policy is problematic. For instance most disabled Americans who need a vehicle do not have any sort of ID to prove it, which means we need to solve that when imposing parking restrictions. Whereas most Brits in that situation do.I used to be in the "sticks first, ban cars" category. Until I had several arguments with other disabled people on the other place. We have to act, but we have to act in an inclusive way.
(DIR) Post #ASNASVYEwVX2jkJIKu by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-05T12:58:26Z
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@nerdbear @rob_cornelius @breadandcircuses Yes we have mobility vehicles here too.They're a good solution for the majority of mid-ability old people.They *don't* entirely solve the problem for all disabled mobility challenged individuals. Some people need to carry a wheelchair. Some people need to carry a lot more than that.Also, here, they use the footpaths, at unsafe speeds. It would be much safer if they could use segregated cycle paths!
(DIR) Post #ASeb8zyEGdwzrmb8Yi by MatthewToad42@climatejustice.social
2023-02-14T00:45:55Z
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@arstechnica Best case scenario this could make the carbon cost of space solar *much* cheaper... if we can send robots to the moon that can make both the bulk structure and the solar panels, it ought to bring down the *ecological* cost dramatically compared to just launching space solar satellites.I've heard some old estimates that the cash cost is reasonable (because space solar tends to generate constantly) but the carbon cost is much higher than ground-based renewables (though lower than fossil fuels).