Punatang - https://uhero.hawaii.edu/liquefied-natur...le-energy/
That only compares methane to oil and is from 2014 and doesn't take into account that large-scale renewables that have dropped
~90% in cost over the last decade, nor does it account for the total costs of producing methane including the
hundreds-of-billions of dollars of taxpayer money to handle abandoned oil & gas wells, or the
impact on human health for communities near oil and gas facilities like those in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley".
Why would you choose an energy source that costs more per-watt, requires taxpayers to handle extensive environmental damages, and is causing disease and death particularly for poor folks?
https://www.civilbeat.org/2024/06/state-...or-hawaii/
The comments on that article are a wild ride, including some people still advocating for "clean coal". Someone needs to come up with a term for these fossil-fuel zombies regurgitating decades-old fossil-fuel company propaganda.
HiloJulie - Maybe you can’t grasp what having dear friends means to you. Maybe it’s a lack of having any friends on your part, or you only just care about yourself and to hell with the rest.
I see - I don't have enough friends that I care enough about to justify creating tons of pollution to hang out with? I'll give you credit for one of the more unique
ad hominem attacks I've seen.
When the massive Australia wildfires were underway in 2020, it was truly astounding the number of comments people left on news articles about how they loved Australia and flew down from the US or Europe every year, apparently without ever making the connection that their mode of showing affection was directly contributing to the
destruction of those locations. If you pointed this out, they would defend their choices with economic justifications, that these locations were depend on income from tourists. If you suggested they donate their vacation money to those impacted communities instead, hence providing all the economic benefits without any of the environmental costs, some would scoff as what they were getting out of it? This probably is another one of those "Amused to Death" situations pointed out earlier, or as some have said - we're converting barrels of oil into tons of pollution, that lasts hundreds of years, for momentary micro-liters of dopamine. The suggestion is to find other sources of dopamine without making all the the long-lived pollution in the process. It might be seen as understanding the big picture and more fully caring for everyone impacted.
HiloJulie - And yes, I extolled the virtues of the new 787 ... I was required to fly to LAX from Kona to sign a dozen documents, which I did, never setting foot outside of LAX only to return to Kona hours later.
Might I suggest that you've had more than your fair share of a finite and highly-polluting resource? As Americans, we already use
more fossil fuels per person than any other country, and given your history you would be far above average even within this extravagant population.
HiloJulie - I did not set the rules, nor would my refusal of doing what I did have changed anything in the end.
I'll avoid the "
just following orders" retort, and point out that there isn't some fixed number of planes flying around regardless of ticket sales. Customer demand drives corporate choices and not buying a plane flight does mean that you did not participate in, or promote the expansion of, that activity.
HiloJulie - The issue that I have is you seem to expect that the burning of fossil fuels will change immediately overnight and life will go on as normal.
Oh, not at all. Normal is massively polluting the planet, destroying its capacity to support life, and endangering the health and lives of billions of people. That's what understanding and believing in climate change entails. I have no interest in perpetuating this normal and so when decision points come up like picking LNG as some oxymoronic way of ending fossil-fuel dependence, I advocate for better options, and keep living a simple life, even if it's not "normal".
HiloJulie - (By the way, the link provided about “methane slip” is about burning LNG in 4 cycle marine engines and not that of steam boilers used for power generation) And yes, there is a certain amount of methane slip when used for power generation...
Yeah, I thought the graphs might help people visualize the contributions from direct combustion, production, and leaks. If you want to look more at power plants and the wider methane supply chain, the
article from RMI and one of the
linked studies is worth reading.
HiloJulie - And keeping the fingers crossed that there are no major spills or other disasters while transporting that bunker oil to the shores of Hawaii.
While worrying about those potential spills makes sense, methane is already leaking during its extraction, transport, and combustion. Perhaps both are bad and should be avoided?
HiloJulie - I’d also point out that you are very well versed in imbedding [sic] links into your post which is nice and helpful. But that does show that you spend significant amounts of time on the internet.
I'm able to provide links as I've already done my homework on this topic and am willing to share. I don't find it difficult to add them as I've been contributing to PW on-and-off for 15 years (the little chain(+) icon on the toolbar adds a link in case anyone missed it). This is just a morning tea-time amusement before heading outside for the day to get some work done.
HiloJulie - Are YOU on solar?
I've answered this repeatedly - it's hard to hold a conversation if you're not paying attention.
HiloJulie - you don’t state if you have a car or what kind of car you have if you have one. If you have an old pre 21st century vehicle, even if you use it once a month to go to town , you’re spewing more carbon into the air than I would if I drove my hybrid car to town 4 times a day for a month.
We do have a car, a decade-old little 35+ mpg sedan. While EVs (recharged on solar) are great, they still require a lot of
energy to manufacture, and we do so little driving, so the math isn't quite there yet for replacement. Energy-returned-on-energy-invested (EROEI) or
embodied energy considerations are key to getting at total physical costs beyond just monetary or operation costs. (P.S. I'm sure your Ford Escape and husband’s F150 are museum artifacts that are never driven ;)
HiloJulie - I also find your attempted dig on cognitive dissonance to be quite humorous. Maybe you should study “Psychological Projection”
Wasn't really a dig, just a question about how you reconcile your beliefs with your actions. As for projection, yes, I experience cognitive dissonance when considering activities that burn fossil fuels in light of understanding of the long term impacts involved, but when I project this notion out, I find most people have avoided this dissonance not by changing their actions, but by adopting beliefs that provide comfort and justification. These beliefs range from climate change denial, to "climate indulgences" (I drive an EV my the emissions from air travel and steaks are ok), to false comparisons (at least I'm not flying private like Musk, Swift, etc), to doomerism (nothing can be changed so why bother doing anything), examples of how
humans are rationalizing not rational. All these are just ways of justifying one's desired choices and work to serve big oil's
'discourse of delay' intended to divert attention away from the crisis.
HiloJulie - Imagine if we converted to LNG 15 years ago...
Well, imagine if people listened to NASA scientist
James Hansen in the
1980s that climate change was real and the affects were beginning to be felt. Imagine 40+ years of taking action to reduce fossil fuel use in all human activities, instead of choosing lifestyles based on mass energy consumption to fuel cheap conveniences. But that's not what we choose, so now the cuts needs to be
even steeper. Anything other than "rapid, deep, and immediate" reductions is insufficient and just making the problem worse no matter the self-deluding stories people tell themselves.[/i]
