[HN Gopher] Live electricity production/consumption CO2 map
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Live electricity production/consumption CO2 map
Author : cromulent
Score : 87 points
Date : 2021-08-18 16:14 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.electricitymap.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.electricitymap.org)
| 0xquad wrote:
| Californians can see what's happening with their grid at:
| https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/index.html
| [deleted]
| bullen wrote:
| Here's a few more maps (nuclear & coal plants) that might also be
| of interest:
|
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-the-worlds-nuclear-power-...
|
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants
| renw0rp wrote:
| To be fair, Europe looks a bit disappointing. After years
| (decades?) of talking about global warming there is still so much
| electricity coming from coal.
| derriz wrote:
| It's a blip - wind generation is at a two week low. Live
| snapshots disguise the overall trend.
|
| The evolution of CO2 intensity of electricity generation in
| Europe can be seen here: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-
| maps/indicators/overview-...
| mountainriver wrote:
| Wow Australia
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Looking at the map, Quebec is doing something amazing.
|
| Considering they have extra capacity, it's just sad to see less
| performing neighbors refusing to buy clean power from them for
| political reasons. [0] [1]
|
| [0] https://ipolitics.ca/2021/03/02/referendum-in-maine-could-
| de...
|
| [1] https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-wont-
| give...
| soperj wrote:
| It only looks amazing because they have never investigated
| whether or not their hydro power produces emissions.
|
| Based on studies where they've flooded areas without removing
| trees, hydro plants could be producing more GHGs than even the
| dirtiest coal plants. Quebec and BC could actually be the
| dirtiest provinces and we just don't know.
|
| Long story short, when trees decompose in an anaerobic
| environment, it produces methane instead of CO2, and also takes
| 4 times longer to decompose.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| That'd be a once off though. The dam may exist for such a
| long timescale that those decomposing trees under the
| waterline are irrelevant.
|
| I always feel we need to simplify the carbon emissions to the
| point of "Carbon that was buried and is now in the
| atmosphere".
|
| This generally removes life in the carbon equation and
| reasonably so. The carbon in life was in the air relatively
| recently. Trees absorbed it from the air and other organisms
| will eat it and re-release it. In general that alone won't
| revert the earth to the state it was in billions of years
| ago.
|
| The carbon underground however hasn't been in the atmosphere
| for billions of years. That's the carbon that's going to
| return earth to the state it was in billions of years ago.
| That's what we should focus on.
| soperj wrote:
| No it won't. Trees can take 100 years to decompose in an
| aerobic environment. Show me a 400 year old dam.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| [Citation needed]
| soperj wrote:
| Please take your crass comments elsewhere. Instead of
| consistently questioning my motives, you could try
| contributing something positive.
| liketochill wrote:
| I don't think it was that common to flood reservoirs without
| removing valuable timber first. No matter how long it takes
| there was a fixed volume of trees that got flooded one time -
| you are suggesting that those trees underwater produce more
| warming gases than the dirtiest coal plants, MW per MW? A
| coal plant continuously burning enough coal to get 1000 MWe
| produces the same amount of warming as a hydro reservoir
| flooded once that has a dam that produces 1000 MWe?
|
| It seems like an outlandish claim to me.
| soperj wrote:
| The reservoirs in BC and Quebec that were flooded were not
| logged. They're also the largest in NA. Williston Lake is
| 7th largest in the World. Manicouagan Reservoir is the 5th
| largest in the World.
|
| >you are suggesting that those trees underwater produce
| more warming gases than the dirtiest coal plants, MW per
| MW? A coal plant continuously burning enough coal to get
| 1000 MWe produces the same amount of warming as a hydro
| reservoir flooded once that has a dam that produces 1000
| MWe?
|
| That's exactly what the research is saying yes. You're
| talking about 700 sq miles of forest here that was flooded.
| Not a few trees.
| maxerickson wrote:
| There's a cottage industry using remote operated
| submersibles to extract timber from reservoirs.
|
| The decision about what to do with it before flooding the
| reservoir would depend on things like the timber market at
| the time and the reason for the dam (many are flood
| controls that also produce electricity).
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > It seems like an outlandish claim to me.
|
| Wonder if such claims aren't made for political motives
| instead of environmental ones.
| belval wrote:
| They usually are, Quebec is borderline hated in Canada
| for various legitimate and illegitimate reasons and
| unfortunately that usually makes it hard for people to
| have an opinion on hydro-quebec that is not rooted in
| their own biases.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Oil and Gas lobbies must love it. These folks are doing
| their (paid) lobbying... for free!
| soperj wrote:
| I feel like I'm doing myself a disservice here even
| responding to you, but pointing out that Hydro is
| contributing massively to released GHGs isn't lobbying
| for oil and gas. It's saying that people need to get
| their head out of the sand if they actually want to
| positively impact the environment. There are clean energy
| generating technologies, hydro can be one if done right,
| in BC and Quebec it wasn't.
|
| That being said, Hydro has a lot of negative
| externalities even without creating an GHGs, it has
| poisoned whole ecosystems with mercury for instance, and
| then there's the impacts on salmon migration.
| soperj wrote:
| Honestly, this isn't even about Quebec. This came from
| research into my own province, BC. J'aime le Quebec.
| Montreal est une de mes villes preferees.
| belval wrote:
| In that case I am sorry I discounted your post, do you
| happen to have some links I could read? I know mercury
| can contaminate the reservoir's water and that it has
| been an issue for some northern communities, but I never
| heard of the methane thing.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > hydro plants could be producing more GHGs than even the
| dirtiest coal plants. Quebec and BC could actually be the
| dirtiest provinces and we just don't know.
|
| Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidences.
|
| > Long story short, when trees decompose in an anaerobic
| environment, it produces methane instead of CO2, and also
| takes 4 times longer to decompose.
|
| Assuming that's true, the GHGs for all the existing dams have
| been emitted already... making them 0 emissions now and for
| the rest of their lifetime. And now, if the methane
| hypothesis is true, this means there are now ways to mitigate
| that for future dams.
| soperj wrote:
| There are ways to mitigate it for future dams. No, they
| aren't all emitted, it takes decades for trees to break
| down in an aerobic environment. Anaerobic is 4 times
| longer. Most trees in the BC/Quebec areas that were flooded
| take at minimum 40 years to decay in an aerobic
| environment.
|
| Here's one about the Curua-Una dam in Brazil:
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11027-005-7303-7
|
| Key phrase: In 1990 (13 years after filling), the Curua-Una
| Dam emitted 3.6 times more greenhouse gases than would have
| been emitted by generating the same amount of electricity
| from oil.
| mygoodaccount wrote:
| Ontario has surplus capacity (of mostly clean energy) as well -
| there's really no need.
| jokoon wrote:
| I'm really curious if it's possible to quickly produce small,
| safe nuclear reactor in high quantity, it might be a good
| solution to quickly remove coal as an energy source.
|
| I'm pretty sure it's far better to mine a lot of Uranium that to
| use coal.
| bdamm wrote:
| NuScale Power is one of these companies.
| sofixa wrote:
| I don't know how quick it would be, but multiple navies around
| the world construct nuclear powered ships and submarines ( US,
| UK, France, Russia), usually in the "years", not "tens of
| years" timeframe ( unless it's an entirely new design of ship).
|
| For instance, the French Barracuda class submarines have 150MW
| reactors, and while the first two boats took 10+ years to
| build, the next are expected within 7-9 years. And that's for
| the whole complex submarine, i highly doubt the reactor takes
| all that time, but i might be mistaken. And that's for a small
| 6 ship class, i imagine that doing "mass production" of said
| reactors could be more cost and time effective.
| autokad wrote:
| many coal plants are peaker plants (at least in US ~250:1000),
| and I don't think nuclear can replace those as they produce a
| continual supply of electricity. Unless these small nuclear
| reactors operate differently?
| 1-6 wrote:
| When is it expected for China to show up? At the Paris Climate
| Agreement, China stated that it will ratify 20.09% of greenhouse
| gases. It's sort of hard to tell where progress is when you don't
| have a good baseline. That goes for the USA as well. These
| percentages are mere numbers without good data.
| corradio wrote:
| Hello, Olivier here, author of the map and founder of the
| company behind it. We're working on adding more countries on
| the map. Check again in a few months and hopefully we'll have
| more of them!
| rs999gti wrote:
| For a solution, how hard would it be to get a national Forest
| Service to just plant more trees in the areas where these power
| plants are?
|
| Carbon capture could come from tree sapling growth into adults.
| alex_young wrote:
| It takes about a decade for a new tree to start capturing much
| carbon, and then you have to maintain a forest for 100 years
| and prevent it from burning, etc. Seems like something we
| should do more of, but surely not a complete solution to the
| problem.
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(page generated 2021-08-18 23:02 UTC)