It's 2050 and This Is How We Stopped Climate Change
npr.org
npr.org
Yeah right, what about the 3+ billion people living in asia/africa below what's known as poverty in US/EU ? Do they also live in high tech houses on top of hills, powered by solar panels and batteries, drinking latte macchiatos from an $3k coffee machine and having an electric car / access to helicopters ? Or is this reserved to the elite and they're still manufacturing 90% of our gadgets in heavily polluted and overcrowded cities ?
> Now, because the animals are growing so much faster
Oh but we already do that, it doesn't look good though: http://www.veterinaryworld.org/Vol.2/November/Sudden%20Death...
SV is so insanely disconnected from reality, it now sounds more like religious prophecies than reasonable predictions; repeat after me "tech will solve all our issues". The only reason we'd stop polluting is if it gets financially more profitable not to pollute, nothing more than a beneficial side effect.
“Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!”
Writing best case (science fiction) scenarios isn't going to do anything good, it might even make people feel good about themselves and "wait" for the problem to be fixed. Pollution is a social/economical/political issue, not a technological one. Innovating in the later while stagnating in the former won't do much.
Within our current economic system, any country that will try to _really_ do something will face severe recession.
Extending the above 'ship design industry' example, when IMO imposed emission caps on ships, did the shipping industry (and supporting industries) faulter or thrive? They're thriving. Why? Because they need to build new things to replace the old things.
-MAN B&W and Wartsilla (Engine Manufacturuers) are now building dual-fuel engines.
-These guys, and their affiliates are offering Exhaust Scrubbing systems (e.g., EGRs, SCRs, Scrubbers, etc.).
-Because of the increase in SCR's, there is now a new, large market for UREA (the active agent, basically Ammonia, in SCR's)
-Propeller manufacturers are offering more hydrodynamic designs, and tow-test tanks are employed to help design those propellers and hydro-improved hull forms.
-New companies have sprouted up (e.g. Energy Focus, etc) just to supply energy efficient LED lighting for ships.
-Contractors are being employed to design new LNG-fuel supply infrastructure to piers world-wide. New training facilities/programs are being built to teach sailors/shore crew how to safely handle LNG.
-Marine hardware suppliers now have a host of new products to sell to meet the demand for energy efficient plants (e.g., high accuracy fuel mass flow meters, shaft torque/thrust sensors, tank gauges, smart controls for HVAC plants, low-power water production units, etc.)
-Companies have sprouted up to supply newly conceived "energy dashboards" that use genetic and machine-learning algorithms to find optimized ship operating configuration (speed, equipment line-up, trim, etc) for a given set of environmental/mission inputs (e.g. weather, voyage plan, etc.).
-I could go on for a long-long time.
Does this sound like a recession to you???
The argument that increasing environmental regulation will stifle the economy is just not true. From what I've seen, the opposite is true. Competition is spurred and new markets emerge, putting more people to work in jobs that actually matter.
> Within our current economic system, any country that will try to _really_ do something will face severe recession.
I respectfully disagree. From my experience, it's quite simply a matter of laziness and weak, shortsighted people.
I've worked in my industry (cargo ship design) for 18 years. Most ships operate on straight-up large diesel engines (20-30MW+ installed power) burning low quality high-sulfer diesel. Multiply that by many ships per class operating virtually continuously for 40-50 years, and you've just dumped an enormous amount of carbon into the atmosphere.
Because ship operators (government and commercial) won't curb emissions on their own, because they THINK it costs more (and it can over the 10 years they'll be in their position of leadership), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) imposes emission regulations, which is forcing ship owners to add exhaust scrubbers, SCRs, etc. However, use of these are only imposed in Emission Control Areas (ECA's near coastlines).
The truth is that with very little ingenuity, you can transition to a dual fuel LNG powered diesel plants (with no Methane slip) to virtually quash NOx and SOx emissions. Yes it's harder (i.e. don't be lazy), and yes in costs more up front (i.e. don't be weak/shortsighted), buts it's achievable even if you aren't forced to do it. On top of that, you can add simple smart controllers to your plant and hotel services, and make other adjustments to the hull form/propeller to improve ship energy efficiency 10% or more.
My engineering team has implemented similar measures simply by telling leadership that this is how the plant needs to be designed. Period. They are not going to design the ship themselves. We've largely balanced the cost by minimizing innefficiencies in other areas (e.g. plant/hotel service controls). It just takes a little time and effort rather than taking the easy route and pulling a 40 year-old design off the shelf and calling it a day.
In the long run, the owner will save money in operating costs, and will actually be a more efficient money-making maching due to the decreased time spent refueling and repairing the ship (improved efficiency means less wear on hardware). All while also decreasing pollution.
I don't feel LNG is enough though, and I'm now setting my sights on zero-emission, H2-powered autonomous shipping (and yes, liquid and compressed H2 is a readily available fuel supply at piers; it's been used in many industries for decades). The technology is available, so we're implementing it. It's really not that hard. The hardest part are synthetic (I.e. safety regulators, merchant marine unions who fear loss of jobs).
These barriers have their purpose, but a lot of people are lazy and just toss up their hands saying "it's too hard" or "it costs too much", without doing the little bit of work needed to say, "no, it's not".
The power is in the hands of the engineers who build the world, not regulators or customers who move money around. Sure, without money and legal runway, better "stuff" won't get built, but without engineers, money/laws alone are not enough to build new "stuff".