this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Fun fact: through the 1800s coal-powered steamships mostly replaced sailing vessels for the transportation of people and time-sensitive cargo around the world. But steamships were highly inefficient and required frequent re-coaling, and locally available coal was dirtier and contained less thermal energy than the good stuff that Britain (who was doing by far most of the shipping) got from Wales and other places on their island. Because steamships could not efficiently and cheaply haul the coal that they needed around the world to restock the coaling stations, this was done instead by an enormous fleet of sailing colliers. So the "steam revolution" of the 1800s was actually a steam/wind-power hybrid. It wasn't until the advent of triple- and quadruple-expansion steam engines, turbines, and greatly improved boilers in the early 1900s that steam-powered vessels could efficiently and economically haul their own fuel. And even with that, wind-powered cargo vessels remained economically viable and operating in significant numbers right up until the start of WWII (that's II, not I).

A great read is The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby, about his time as a sailor aboard Moshulu (a large steel sail-powered cargo ship) in 1938-1939. Moshulu went on to star in The Godfather Part II as the ship which brings young Vito Corleone to New York, and is now weirdly enough a floating restaurant in my city of Philadelphia (I've never eaten there but I want to).

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

These chairs they have inside it would make me not want to eat there.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Once you realize the byproducts of oil and how essential some are and the fact that rich countries aren't going to change their way of life and the fact that developing countries will industrialize in the same way western countries have and will start to produce similar environmental emissions things look pretty bleak in terms of that average temperature rise.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Sadly many developing countries are further along in EV uptake because they have access to $4k EVs without tariffs

[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 week ago (1 children)

the fact that developing countries will industrialize in the same way western countries have and will start to produce similar environmental emissions

That's not a fact. It makes more sense for developing countries to skip directly to renewable energy sources.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

You're right it's not a fact. But I would say large percentage of developing nations aren't pursuing such options because it's easier to use things like coal. If you take a look at the new coal plants under construction as the moment, the top 15 are from developing countries. https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-just-15-countries-account-for-98-of-new-coal-power-development/

China and India account for 3 billion people alone and they're still building new coal plants to account for their growing energy needs despite using renewable energy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Water/wind/solar is cheaper now, and it's not even close. It's electrifying communities that never had any sort of electrification before since they can buy a few panels and bypass the (often corrupt) power utility in the country. The intermittency is a problem, but it's still better than not having it at all.

So yes, it looks like they'll skip carbon-based energy entirely. This is similar to what's happened with landlines in these regions; they skipped straight to cell phones.

That said, you know where 95% of new coal power plants are being built? China.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

That's because those plans and policies were drafted 10 years ago when coal was cheaper. These days the plans being made are based on solar, because solar is the cheapest.

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