this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
154 points (99.4% liked)

Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

5239 readers
577 users here now

Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
silence7@slrpnk.net
154
Germany’s emissions hit 70-year low as it reduces reliance on coal (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 10 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Despite this fall in coal reliance, the thinktank said, “most of the emissions cuts in 2023 are not sustainable from an industrial or climate policy perspective”.

Müller said: “The crisis-related slump in production weakens the German economy. If emissions are subsequently relocated abroad, then nothing has been achieved for the climate.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CJOtheReal@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 10 months ago (3 children)

100% without nuclear!

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That's the part I don't get... How could it have been higher while they had nuclear plants??

[–] Some_Dumb_Goat@pawb.social 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

It seems like nuclear started being phased out in the early 2000s, and wind only started getting phased in, in like the 2000s and with a bit of solar getting phased in around 2010.

Fossil fuels seemed to take up more than half of their energy mix till like 2008 ish (?), and only really starting to drop off around 2016.

Although now I'm also kinda wondering what their total energy usage/ production was during that time now.

[–] Some_Dumb_Goat@pawb.social 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Graph showing GDP, energy consumption, and emissions since 1991

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 4 points 10 months ago

Because nuclear renewables replaced a lot of nuclear power, Germany was a net electricity exporter, but that turned around, and electricity consumption is down a lot.

Nuclear is not the only way to provide clean energy.

Then other parts of the economy. Electricity makes up a quarter of Germanys emissions. Gas boilers, combustion engines and so forth all emit a lot, but they are not something, which can be replaced with a nuclear power plant. That takes other systems like heat pumps, electric cars and so forth. Since that makes up most of the emissions changes in those areas matter a lot more then the electricity system.

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So you’re saying it could have been even lower

[–] CJOtheReal@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Nope. Nuclear isn't green and therefore has no place in the future.

[–] frezik@midwest.social 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'll have you know that Uranium is green (sometimes).

[–] CJOtheReal@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago

Most nuclear Reactors have a blue Shine

https://youtu.be/JvgF83OHV9c

[–] KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yup, coal is though, comes from plants, so much greener. So glad they closed the big bad nuclear plants so they could be more reliant on green coal. The air itself is cleaner now.

[–] CJOtheReal@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Nuclear turn off was decided long ago and the coal should have been replaced by gas until the real green energy is up to required levels... That plan was thrown into the bin however by the actions of our gas supplier...

And nuclear might not be as problematic for the air, but its awful for groundwater (mining is dirty as hell) there is no good way to store the waste, its a order of Magnitude more expensive than everything else etc...

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com 7 points 10 months ago

Hope you realize that green energy also requires a ton of mining and construction.

[–] KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago

there is no good way to store the waste

You should educate yourself more..

https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU

[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 1 points 10 months ago

You are right that mining is dirty as hell and if we only consider the ecological impact of mining then nuclear is a much better solution than renewables energy.

For the whole world to transition to renewables energy the production of copper will need to be multiplied by 2.7 in 2040 compared to 2020 levels, rare earth by 7.3, lithium by 42 ! ...

Uranium mining is terrible for environment but so is copper mining, cobalt mining, lithium extraction ... Since uranium is so dense energetically we only need a very tiny amount of it to produce electricity so overall the mining impact of nuclear is much lower than renewables energies.

The amount of copper and other minetals used for renewable energy is way higher than nuclear, these have to be mined too.

I'm not advocating for nuclear but there is so much disinformation around it that does not help the debate.

[–] Brocon@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

One day... I hope while I'm still kicking.