Plastic recycling remains a 'myth': Greenpeace study

Re:Plastic recycling remains a 'myth': Greenpeace study by Schroedingersat on Monday October 24, 2022 @04:10PM (#33321929)

The second law still applies no matter where you get the heat. GHG is a problem because it reduces the earth's ability to reject waste heat by several tens of joules for every joule of work we get.

Simply moving tens of joules of heat to the surface would have the same effect even if doing it affordably weren't scifi.

There's a limited budget of everything on earth's surface from metals to waste heat to space and we're running head first into all of them.

We could spend it on allowing a tiny portion of the world to be wasteful and craven, or we could use it for everyone to thrive.

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Re:Plastic recycling remains a 'myth': Greenpeace study by tomp on Monday October 24, 2022 @04:13PM (#33321974)

LOL no. Humanity’s heat sources (burning fossil fuels, fission, geothermal) are a drop in the bucket compared to solar irradiation and the resulting heat.

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Re:Plastic recycling remains a 'myth': Greenpeace study by Schroedingersat on Monday October 24, 2022 @11:02PM (#33325673)

Lol no the bucket's about 5% full, we couldn't even all live as wealthy americnans do now.

Current primary energy: 17TW

Total insolation: ~ 180PW

Total GHG forcing: 5W/m^2

Ratio of insolation to total forcing: 40:1

USA domestic and imported primary energy per capita: 14kW

Ratio to world average: 7

Remaining headroom above US averag for 5W/m^2 (catastrophuc climate change): 75kW per person.

Remaining headroom above US average for 1W/m^2 (still bad): 3kW per person

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