Using a furnace in winter is a more apt example as you're likeliest to die from freezing than heat stroke in the US. In the SW they use swamp/evaporative AC. It uses a fraction of electricity but substantially more water. The SW is running out of water and places with water can't use evaporative cooling sadly as it relies in solar energy &/low humidity.
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/tropical-wetlands-emit-more-methane-than-previously-thought Tropical Wetlands Emit More Methane Than Previously Thought Climate models could be vastly underestimating methane emissions from the world’s tropical wetlands, according to observational surveys of wetlands in Zambia. by Rachel Fritts 13 September 2022 The Bangweulu wetlands of Zambia, seen here in February 2019 from the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements research aircraft, emit far more methane than is predicted by emissions models. Credit: P. Barker Source: Global Biogeochemical Cycles Since 2007, the world’s atmospheric methane concentration has risen at an accelerated rate, but scientists aren’t exactly sure why. This is a problem, because methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas. It has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere, and it accounts for about 30% of global warming since preindustrial times. To better understand methane’s recent climb and how to mitigate it, scientists are trying to collect more accurate measurements of methane’s sources, both human and natural. In a new study, Shaw et al. find that tropical wetlands, which are responsible for about a fifth of the world’s methane emissions, are releasing significantly more methane than previously thought. Methane emissions from tropical wetlands are poorly studied, especially in Africa. The researchers set out to help fill this data gap with the first-ever airborne surveys of methane released from wetlands in Zambia, focusing on three of the country’s large wetland areas: Bangweulu, Kafue, and Lukanga. They used the United Kingdom’s Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements, a British Aerospace 146 aircraft fitted with a scientific measurement laboratory, to sample environmental data. And to estimate methane emissions, they applied three approaches at each wetland site: airborne mass balance, airborne eddy covariance, and atmospheric inversion. Whereas models have predicted emissions from these wetlands of 0.6–3.9 milligrams per square meter per hour, the researchers’ direct observations told a different story. The observed methane emissions were 5–28 milligrams per square meter per hour, an order of magnitude higher. If these findings hold true for other understudied tropical wetlands, they indicate that Global Carbon Project models significantly underestimate wetlands’ contributions to the world’s atmospheric methane. This is especially concerning, because climate change could create a feedback cycle in which increasing rainfall and rising temperatures drive wetlands to release even more of the gas. In that scenario, then to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming to under 2°C relative to preindustrial times, countries will need to reduce human-caused greenhouse gas emissions by far greater quantities than current estimates suggest. (Global Biogeochemical Cycles, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GB007261, 2022) —Rachel Fritts, Science Writer Citation: Fritts, R. (2022), Tropical wetlands emit more methane than previously thought, Eos, 103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO220443. Published on 13 September 2022. Text © 2022. AGU. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
the big one is the peat deposits in the Russian tundra. Russia has no qualms about burning it for fuel but global warming is thawing them as well releasing shit tons of methane.
Indeed. Those are a known source and are increasingly emitting more. Declining hydroxls are making the problem with methane worse, as they ordinarlly "soak" up methane, but forest fires smoke, for one thing, is neutralizing them. This tropical wetlands news is added on top. I fear we have set off the "methane bomb".
Hydroxyl and methane? SRM proponents fail to consider key aspect of atmospheric chemistry Nov 21 2017 See as a PDF By Dr. Rachel Smolker Hydroxyl (OH) is a simple, very short lived but “radical” marriage of one hydrogen and one oxygen molecule. Being “radical” means that it reacts very readily with other chemicals, being an important agent of change. Hydroxyl radicals are referred to as an atmospheric “detergent” because they play a key role in oxidizing, and thereby decomposing various air pollutants, including carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, and methane. OH chemistry is closely associated with ozone dynamics – since most OH is formed from UV mediated breakdown of ozone. A study just published in July 2017 looked at the impact of stratospheric aerosol injection of sulfate particles (SAI), a proposed “solar radiation management” (SRM) approach to geoengineering, on methane. OH converts methane into water and CO2, over time. The longevity, and in turn the concentration of methane in the atmosphere therefore depends in large part on the concentration of OH.[1] What they found (using models) is that sulfate aerosol injection would have several effects – on planetary albedo, on UV scattering and on circulation of air and sulfate particles between layers of the atmosphere. The two models used by the researchers suggest that those impacts, taken together these would result in an increased longevity of methane by as much as 16% – which would mean 16%more methane in the atmosphere at any one time. This would greatly exacerbate (“force”) warming.[2] The idea of using SAI has been bandied about for over a decade. David Keith, one of the most avid proponents recently opened a laboratory at Harvard University, with grants from the Gates Foundation and others. This is one of several new academic institutes that have taken up research on geoengineering with grant moneys flowing. The Royal Society and National Academies, among others have written assessments, and reports and debates are increasingly, and disturbingly, more commonplace. Keith and colleagues have announced plans for an open-air experiment in the southwestern USA in 2018. So how is it, that all of these academics, and all the king’s men have not taken into consideration the impacts of SAI on OH breakdown of methane, until now? My long-time colleague and codirector of Biofuelwatch, Almuth Ernsting, has no Ph.D. in, or formal training in atmospheric chemistry. But she has long been wondering about that possibility. She first learned the importance of hydroxyl in the atmosphere from reading a 2006 book by Fred Pearce, which included a chapter on hydroxyl (“The Last Generation”). Later, in 2011, while participating in a Convention on Biological Diversity civil society meeting on climate geoengineering, attended by various “experts” on geoengineering, Almuth raised the question about how injection of sulfate aerosols might impact OH behavior, but no answer was offered. The fact that the vitally important question whether SAI might impact on the lifespan and thus the concentration of methane in the atmosphere was never publicly asked or acknowledged by geoengineering advocates until now, is deeply troubling. OH is not something totally new. It has long been known as a factor in atmospheric chemistry, discussed in the IPCC climate science reports for over a decade. The potential for SAI to cause ozone depletion, (which is mediated by OH), was identified, but nothing appears to have ever been written about the potential effects on methane. Surely, anyone seriously contemplating the injection of massive quantities of sulfur into the stratosphere SHOULD have taken careful consideration of the impact that doing so would have on all of the OH–mediated chemical reactions, including methane. This apparent oversight could be viewed as a textbook example of how a severely narrow, reductionist engineering world view fails us. The complex interdependence of multiple, ever-changing, physical and chemical factors that results in our life-supporting atmosphere is not amenable to understanding in linear, binary, widget-tweaking terms. We can at least hope that it was in fact an “oversight” and not deliberate shrouding of the issue: potentially the impacts on methane longevity could entirely offset any purported cooling from SAI – or worse. One methane molecule is estimated to cause 28 times as much warming over a century as one CO2 molecule. This new “risk” thus utterly undermines proclamations (grants, careers and all) of its’ effectiveness as a means of cooling. Had SAI already been deployed, we might now be learning the hard way via experience about OH/methane interactions. Or even worse, even if the effects were exactly as predicted by the models used in the recent study, there would be so many other possible reasons for rising methane levels that it could still be difficult to prove the link to SAI. Fortunately, with a de-facto moratorium on geoengineering, (via the Convention on Biological Diversity), widespread deep public skepticism towards climate geoengineering in general, and serious concerns about governance, we have not gone down that road yet. Many are banging the geoengineering drums with increasing persistence however, calling for “desperate measures” as the climate heats up. This study is an important wake up call. Several prior studies indicated that SAI would be problematic for various reasons – from regional impacts on rainfall and weather, to impacts on ozone. This latest study provides a compelling reason to steer entirely clear of SRM. Virtually all climate geoengineering technofixes that are under consideration not only distract from the urgency of immediate emissions reductions – but also it is clear that they simply won’t work! In fact, deploying any of the proposed geoengineering techniques is likely to only make matters worse. As we race headlong into climate chaos and face calls for desperate measures, this would be a key point to keep in mind! [1] OH also plays a key role in sulfur chemistry in the atmosphere. See for example: http://www.nature.com/articles/284330a0 [2] Visioni, D., Pitari, G., Aquila, V., Times, S., Cionni, I., Genova, G. and Mancini, E. 2017. Sulfate goengineering impact on methane transport and longevity: results from the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project.(GeoMIP). Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17: 11209-11226
Opinion Farhad Manjoo Nuclear Power Still Doesn’t Make Much Sense Sept. 16, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET Plant Vogtle nuclear energy facility in Waynesboro, Ga.Credit...Michael Holahan/The Augusta Chronicle, via Associated Press By Farhad Manjoo Whenever I write about the plummeting costs and growing capabilities of wind power, solar power and batteries, I’m usually met with a barrage of radioactive responses from the internet’s overheated nuclear reactors — social-media-savvy environmental activists who insist that nuclear power should play a leading role in the world’s transition away from fossil fuels. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow, they point out, but nuclear power plants produce carbon-free energy day and night, rain or shine. Their argument that nuclear power is unfairly maligned has been bolstered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; Germany, which shut down many of its nuclear plants in the past decade while building natural gas pipelines to Russia, now faces a deep energy crunch. It has had to burn more coal to keep the lights on. I’m not a never-nuke, but I’ve had my doubts about atomic power. Still, I wanted to keep an open mind. So last week I flew to London to attend the World Nuclear Symposium, an annual conference put on by the nuclear industry’s global trade group, the World Nuclear Association. I heard an earful from industry executives, analysts, lobbyists and government officials who are giddy about nuclear power’s prospects for powering the world of tomorrow. a too-bad rap. Nuclear power is relatively safe, reliable and clean; compared to the planetary destruction wrought by fossil fuels, nuclear power looks like a panacea. Patrick Fragman, the C.E.O. of the large American nuclear manufacturer Westinghouse, said his industry had to “unwind decades of brainwashing of public opinion in many countries” about the dangers of nuclear power. But the argument for significantly ramping up the production of nuclear power — especially in places where overall energy consumption isn’t growing, like in the United States and Europe — falls short. That’s because the nuclear industry has long been hobbled by two problems that its boosters can’t really wish away: Nuclear is far slower to build than most other forms of power, and it’s far more expensive, too. And now there is a third problem on the horizon. As battery technology improves and the price of electricity storage plummets, nuclear may be way too late, too — with much of its value eclipsed by cheaper, faster and more flexible renewable power technologies. In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the goal set in the Paris Agreement to avert the worst effects of global warming — experts say that we need to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions to a net of zero by 2050. Responding to such a climate emergency with nuclear power is like calling on a sloth to put out a house fire. The 63 nuclear reactors that went into service around the world between 2011 and 2020 took an average of around 10 years to build. By comparison, solar and wind farms can be built in months; in 2020 and 2021 alone, the world added 464 gigawatts of wind and solar power-generation capacity, which is more power than can be generated by all the nuclear plants operating in the world today. The nuclear industry has been notorious for cost overruns and delays. The only nuclear reactors under construction in the United States — a Westinghouse project at the Plant Vogtle power station in Georgia — were started in 2013 and projected to be finished in 2017. They are still not done — and an initial budget of $14 billion has more than doubled to over $28 billion. In 2017, utilities in South Carolina canceled two reactors midway through construction after cost projections ballooned from $11.5 billion to more than $25 billion. And after all this build time, you get a very expensive source of energy. In a common energy-industry measure known as “levelized cost,” nuclear’s minimum price is about $131 per megawatt-hour, which is at least twice the price of natural gas and coal, and four times the cost of utility-scale solar and onshore wind power installations. And the high price of nuclear power doesn’t include its extraneous costs, such as the staggering price of disasters. Cleanup and other costs for the 2011 Fukushima disaster, caused by an earthquake and a tsunami off the Japanese coast, may approach a trillion dollars. Nuclear boosters say that these problems can be solved. There was much talk at the conference about streamlining regulations and reducing costs and build times by constructing smaller, more advanced and less disaster-prone reactors. Once we start building more, the industry will start seeing the benefits of scale and efficiency, several industry insiders told me. “The best way to become good at building nuclear power plants is to build nuclear power plants,” said Sama Bilbao y Léon, the director general of the World Nuclear Association. John Kotek, an executive at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s American trade group, pointed out that the U.S. Navy builds nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers in a matter of years — suggesting that quick build times for small reactors could be doable. Perhaps. But the much-vaunted small reactors are still novel, mainly untested technology. In another era, it may have been worth taking a gamble on these systems in order to avert climate disaster. But Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford and a longtime proponent of renewable energy, told me that such a bet makes less sense today, when wind and solar power keep getting better — because any new money put in nuclear is money you aren’t spending on renewable projects that could lower emissions immediately. There’s an opportunity cost “of waiting around for a nuclear reactor to be built when you could have spent that money on wind or solar and got rid of emissions much faster,” Jacobson said. This cost may be particularly onerous when you consider the rapid advancement in battery technology, which can help address the main shortcoming of renewable power: its intermittency. The price of lithium-ion batteries has dropped by about 97 percent since they were introduced in 1991, and prices are projected to keep falling. Jacobson is one of several researchers who have argued that such advances will render nuclear power essentially obsolete. As we build more renewable energy systems — onshore and offshore wind, solar power everywhere — and improve technologies to store energy (through batteries and other ideas), wind and solar can meet most of our energy needs, says Jacobson. In a 2015 paper, he argued that the world can be powered through renewable energy alone. His findings have been hotly disputed, but other researchers have come to similar conclusions. On the other hand, the International Energy Agency’s projections for reaching net-zero energy still rely on nuclear. The agency says that nuclear capacity will need to double by 2050, with two-thirds of that growth occurring in developing economies. Still, even with nuclear’s doubling, the I.E.A. says nuclear power will contribute less than 10 percent of global electricity in 2050; over the same period, the agency says renewable generation will grow eightfold, contributing 90 percent of electric power in 2050. Clearly, then, nuclear’s problems don’t mean we should shut down all nuclear plants; existing plants are quite valuable in our energy mix as we ramp up solar and wind. And in places like China, India and other regions where demand for energy is growing, new nuclear plants may have a big role to play — and if the small, advanced reactors become viable, perhaps we’ll see some of those, too. But it’s unlikely that nuclear can play anything close to a dominant role; its share of electricity production is quite likely to fall over time. Which isn’t really a surprise. A quick glance at daily headlines suggests nuclear power is plagued by too many problems for comfort. I landed in London at around the same time that international energy regulators were making emergency plans for maintaining the safety of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which had come under shelling from Russian troops. In South Korea, operators of the Kori nuclear power plant were cutting production in anticipation of a massive typhoon. And this summer in France, which gets about 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, plant operators had to cut production because hot weather had raised the temperature of river water used to cool the reactors — kind of a big problem on a planet that keeps heating up. Tyson Slocum, the director of the energy program at the advocacy group Public Citizen, summed up these problems neatly: “Nuclear power has simply been eclipsed,” he said. “It was an incredible zero-emission resource for its day. But for much of the energy system today, that day has long passed.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/...-much-sense.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytopinion
I was ready to hate but it's well written. I agree as other tech progresses and economies of scale make it cheaper, nuclear becomes less and less attractive as it remains stagnant due to funding. A few observations though: Dude talks about the gigawatt demand being "neutral" in the US but doesn't account for coming transition from ICE to electric. He's dismissive of the economies of scale of nuclear while championing those of alternatives, why? He mentions how alternatives in two years overtook worldwide capacity of nuclear (impressive) but makes no mention of those plants that have gone offline and not replaced. I'll add that with upcoming droughts and climate refugees, giant solar farms over arable/habitable land does not make much sense (positive being there'll be more inhospitable land for solar), so wind makes sense in those regions. There's no mention of lithium supply either though it's impressive it's come down 97 percent in cost (hydro/dam batteries where available & molten salt may come in play here).