{"id":28949,"date":"2023-10-09T10:50:13","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T17:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=28949"},"modified":"2023-10-09T10:50:15","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T17:50:15","slug":"the-short-list-of-climate-actions-that-will-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/10\/09\/the-short-list-of-climate-actions-that-will-work\/","title":{"rendered":"The Short List of Climate Actions That Will Work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Midjourney
Midjourney generated image of Earth from space, green, clean<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Member-only story<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have almost all the solutions for the climate problem, we just have to implement them<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Michael<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Michael Barnard<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published in <\/a>The Future is Electric<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sep 24, 2023 (Medium.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For climate action, there are solutions where money, time and resources should be focused, and there are distractions that typically serve things other than moving the needle on climate emissions. For several years, I\u2019ve been iterating my short list of climate actions that will work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electrify Everything<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Convert all energy services to work directly from electricity instead of fossil fuels. Transportation, industry and agriculture. All of it. All gas appliances must go. All ground transport must be electric. Shorter-haul aviation and maritime shipping must run on batteries. Preserve biofuels for longer-haul aviation and shipping that can\u2019t be electrified. All residential, commercial and industrial heat from electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world throws away two-thirds or more of all primary energy<\/a>, mostly in the form of waste heat from fossil fuels used in inherently inefficient combustion processes. We only have to replace a third of the actual primary energy we use today to maintain our lifestyle and economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overbuild Renewable Generation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All other forms of generation with the exception of nuclear were overbuilt, so do the same with wind and solar. They are really cheap<\/a>, so it will not be that expensive. Also more hydroelectricity, a bit of geothermal and some biomass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Build Continent-Scale Electrical Grids And Markets<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

And improve existing ones. High-voltage direct current<\/a> is an essential technology for long-distance, low-loss electrical transmission. Upgrade AC transmission to HVDC. Bury HVDC along existing right-of-ways. Link continents with HVDC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Build Pumped Hydro And Other Storage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Storage of electricity is an overstated concern<\/a> given overbuilt renewables and continent-scale grids, but some is still required. Build closed-loop, off-river, pumped hydro, which has a resource potential far greater than the need, is efficient, and uses stable, known technologies. Shift some existing hydro-electric dams to be passive, on-demand storage as opposed to baseload. Deploy lithium-ion and similar cell-based technologies for fast-response grid storage. Deploy redox flow batteries to bridge cell-based batteries and pumped hydro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plant A Lot Of Trees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We have cut down about 50% of the 6 trillion trees<\/a> that used to grow on Earth. Plant a trillion trees to buy us a lot of time as they suck about a ton of CO2 from the atmosphere per tree over 40 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Change Agricultural Practices<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Switch to low-tillage farming<\/a> to buy us a lot of time as the CO2 captured by farmland stays in the soil a lot longer, and some of it would be permanently sequestered. Make precision agriculture<\/a> universal and leverage agrigenetics to tweak nitrogen fixing <\/a>microbes and plants to mostly eliminate CO2e-heavy nitrogen fertilizers to clear up the rest. Eliminate subsistence farming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fix Concrete, Steel And Industrial Processes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

About eight percent of global CO2 emissions<\/a> come from making cement. It\u2019s essential to urbanization but a huge source of CO2, about half from the energy and half from CO2 that bakes off limestone as it is turned into quicklime. Electrify heat for cement or use existing biomethane we are creating in landfills. Capture limestone kiln CO2, as it is one of the few places where carbon capture will make sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fix steel by scrapping<\/a> internal combustion cars, refineries, pipelines<\/a>, oil tankers<\/a>, coal cars and other fossil fuel infrastructure into new steel using electric minimills. Seventy percent of North American steel is already made this way. Use green hydrogen for the limited requirement for new steel<\/a>, one of its few growth areas. Transform high-emitting industrial processes like bicarbonate manufacturing using electrochemistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price Carbon Aggressively<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Get people and industries to shift away from emitting lots of CO2 by <\/mark>making it expensive<\/a><\/mark>. That\u2019s what carbon pricing does, and it works.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shut Down Coal And Gas Generation Aggressively<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Getting rid of coal is already happening, but it\u2019s still by far the biggest single source of CO2 emissions. Regulate coal plants out of existence. For gas, the questions are how can we reduce upstream methane leakage to a minimum<\/a>, how few gas plants can we build, how many of them can we run on biologically sourced methane and how fast can we shut them down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stop Financing And Subsidies For Fossil Fuel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Exploration, extraction and use, just cut it out. The U.S. alone spends tens of billions of dollars annually on subsidies of various kinds for the fossil fuel industry, and hasn\u2019t done a thing about it since committing to eliminate them in 2009. The G7 and G20 have committed to eliminating subsidies, but progress has been very slow<\/a>. Save money for cleaning up the mess the industry is leaving behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eliminate HFCs In Refrigeration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Replace refrigerants<\/a> like R410a with propane and CO2. The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol targets the side effects of high global warming potential HFCs. Heat pumps and refrigerators leak 2% to 4% of their working gas every year, and common HFC refrigerants are 2,000 to 4,000 times worse than CO2 for driving warming. Project Drawdown puts this at \u21161 on its ranked list of solutions by cost vs benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ignore Distractions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nuclear power is too slow to build and too expensive. Even China can\u2019t scale deployment of nuclear<\/a>, which peaked in 2018 and has been flat since, compared to exponential growth of renewables. Small modular reactors are decades away from being a scaled solution if they ever achieve promised economies, and fusion is further away. Appreciate every nuclear reactor that is commissioned as long-lasting low-carbon generation, but focus on renewables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mechanical carbon capture and sequestration is a mostly dead end<\/a>. Every CCS site of any scale is extracting CO2 from underground in one place and putting it back underground in another to mine governmental tax breaks and perform enhanced oil recovery. Stop pretending it\u2019s a scaled solution as opposed to a fig leaf and a niche technology for difficult sectors like cement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydrogen is a climate change problem<\/a>, not a climate change solution. It is an inefficient and ineffective store of energy that only benefits the fossil fuel and adjacent industries as they seek to defer real climate action. We use about 120 million tons of black hydrogen annually, with CO2e emissions about a billion tons per year. The biggest user is in oil refineries to reduce sulphur in gas, diesel, kerosene and other petroleum products, and that\u2019s going away. Fixing existing hydrogen that will persist is job one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Air-to-fuel technologies are dead ends<\/a>. Solutions such as Carbon Engineering\u2019s direct-air-capture with hydrogen electrolysis to create synthetic fuels is a broken model. It\u2019s vastly more expensive and higher CO2 emitting than electrification or biological pathway fuel synthesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay Attention To Motivations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is all empirically grounded analysis. It\u2019s not rocket science. Where approaches or recommendations from people or groups diverge from the above, question what lobbying groups are involved, where revenue will be lost or gained and in general what the motivations of the people or organizations<\/a> involved are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have the solutions. We just need the will to execute, which is being sapped by the losers in this necessary transformation, predominantly the fossil fuel industry.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Michael<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Written by\u00a0Michael Barnard<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.9K Followers<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7Editor for <\/a>The Future is Electric<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advisor FLIMAX. Founder distnc & TFIE. Publish on low-carbon transformation and related politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Member-only story We have almost all the solutions for the climate problem, we just have to implement them Michael Barnard Published in The Future is Electric Sep 24, 2023 (Medium.com) For climate action, there are solutions where money, time and resources should be focused, and there are distractions that typically… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28949"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28950,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28949\/revisions\/28950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}