Re:Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide int...
by specialist on Wednesday August 23, 2017 @04:21PM
(#15084712)
There is no tradeoff.
Reducing waste (CO2, methane, heat, whatever) increases profits.
Not for the entrenched interests, obviously. Happily, everyone else who's been paying their externalized costs (taxpayers, consumers) benefits.
Re:Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide int...
by bluGill on Wednesday August 23, 2017 @04:54PM
(#15085018)
There is only so much you can reduce waste though. The internal combustion engine is limited by thermodynamics to about 50% efficiency, we are already reaching >40% in production engines. There just isn't much more waste we can get rid of. (electric cars bring up a different sets of limits, though probably higher)
Re:Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide int...
by specialist on Wednesday August 23, 2017 @09:31PM
(#15086912)
Fewer trips, fewer miles/km, lighter vehicals, vehical sharing, etc.
Optimize the whole system. Localized optimization leads to decreased overall efficiency.
Re:Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide int...
by sadfsafaasdfsa on Wednesday August 23, 2017 @07:38PM
(#15086218)
"Reducing waste (CO2, methane, heat, whatever) increases profits."
That's a broad generalization and far simpler model than what the poster is referring to.
Yes, riding a motorcycle instead of an SUV decreases all emissions. This is the simple base case.
However driving a diesel SUV decreases CO2 but increases NOx wrt to a gasoline one. This is the higher-order effect.
It completely ignores tradeoffs. General environmentalism has been very aggresively anti-nuclear. In a world of CO2 caused climate change, it has to rethink that opposition. Another example is with diesel engines. There is a tradeoff between NOX emmisions and efficiency (and thus CO2 emissions). What you decide the tradeoff to be, is influenced by how much you thing climate change is a problem.
Another example is endangered species. If we really are going to have catastrophic global warming, then maybe we don't try as aggressively to protect all species from habitat destruction say from building hydroelectric, wind, solar power plants in Africa.