Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumHawaiian electricity utilities predict 100% renewables 5 years early and 48% in just 4 years
https://electrek.co/2016/12/30/hawaiian-electricity-utilities-predict-100-renewables-5-years-early-and-48-in-just-4-years/John Fitzgerald Weaver
[font size=3]About a year and a half ago, the island state of Hawaii proclaimed a goal of getting to 100% renewable electricity by 2045 – the first US State to make such a proclamation. In the past week, the Hawaiian Electric Companies (HECO) delivered plans showing a progression to 100% renewable electricity before 2040. In a maximum projected model – 100% was possible by 2030 when considering the excess energy generation of residential solar customers. The plan suggests that electricity rates will rise through the mid-2020s due to upgrade requirements, before they fall as the benefit of no fuel electricity pays itself off. Sometime in late 2017, HECO believes they will meet the 2020 goal of 30% renewables – and sets an agressive goal to maximize installations before the Federal Solar ITC phases out. Bravo Hawaii.
In the presentation summary (the full report: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4), the 2017-2021 goal expects the island to be at 52% renewable energy – including greater than 165,000 residential solar power systems, 360MW of utility scale solar, 157MW of utility scale wind power, 115MW of demand response plus energy storage and ‘smart solar.’ Various islands have different paces and technologies to reach their 100% – by 2020 Moloka’i will reach 100%, Hawaii 80%, Maui 63%, Lanai 59% and O’ahu 40%. HECO’s ongoing experiments with reactive solar panel level electronics are part of broader work focused high levels of solar penetration that many are developing technologies for.
The plan is an updated version of a similar document released in April of 2016 – which itself was a response to rejection of the prior plan by the state regulators:
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NNadir
(33,513 posts)...survivors will be experiencing close to 500 ppm and the so called "renewable energy" industry - Trump like in its disconnection from reality - will be making similar optimistic "100% by..." statements about 2080.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Until we get serious about cutting human numbers and activity levels by high double-digit percentages, all this renewable energy will just be used to destroy the planet like we're already doing. Out of the dozens of planetary crises caused by human energy use, this won't even impact the most important one - excessive total CO2 emissions from a wide variety of sources.
Until aggregate human CO2 emissions drop very close to to zero, climate damage can not begin to heal.
Until aggregate human activity levels drop very close close to zero, planetary damage of all other kinds can not begin to heal.
Let's continue developing solar and wind power, if we wish. But let's also have the moral and intellectual integrity to admit that doing it won't "solve" anything.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)We won’t cut the birth rate to zero. So, let’s stop talking about population control as if it were a panacea.
Instead, let’s look at decreasing the impact individual humans have on the ecosystem.
The UN projects a population increase of roughly ⅓ by 2050. If we could decrease the impact on the ecosystem of those new humans by ½…
Yes, population control is important, and in much of the world is a reality today.
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/fertility/world-fertility-patterns-2015.pdf
Low-fertility countries now include all of Europe and Northern America, as well as many countries in Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Another 46 per cent of the world’s population lives in “intermediate-fertility” countries that have already experienced substantial fertility declines and where women have on average between 2.1 and 5 children.
The remaining 8 per cent of the world’s population lives in “high-fertility” countries that have experienced only limited fertility decline to date. In these countries the average woman has five or more children over her lifetime. Most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.
…
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)We need to cut the number of people. By any and all means. If we want to save any other life on this planet beyond jellyfish and slime mold, we have to go.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)I believe the scenario you propose is a non-starter.
Got anything more realistic in mind?
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)My proposal is to enjoy the time we have left, doing whatever we find enjoyable.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)Very helpful.
I guess you don’t give a damn about the suffering of those who will follow you.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Large-scale murder is a much more likely approach. With lots and lots of collateral damage...
Humans are very good at that.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)Thank you, no.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)Their population alone exceeds that which you believe is the maximum human population for the entire planet. Yeah, their ability to live sustainably would just ruin your entire worldview.
That’s why you dismiss their efforts to do so. The idea of them succeeding is just abhorrent to you.
http://www.oahumpo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Hawaii2050_Plan_FINAL.pdf
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)What kind of a twisted, truncated definition of "sustainablility" does one have to have to make such a thought possible?
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)You feel it is impossible for people to live “sustainably” and so, you will not accept the possibility of anyone doing it.
It all wraps up in a nice neat bundle.
Living “sustainably” is impossible, therefore it is pointless to try, pointless even to try to decrease our impact on the planet and any efforts toward doing so are worthy only of derision.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I think you finally understand me.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)You deny the possibility of sustainability, and yet, you appear to believe that (without us) the ecosystem was self-sustaining. This is irrational.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I do deny that it's possible for 7.5 billion humans living on 18 Terawatts of energy to be sustainable.
I also deny that it's possible to section off a tiny set of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (that are still linked into the global industrial system, assume they will replace all fossil fuel use by windmills and solar panels at some point in the future, and claim that makes them sustainable. Not with a straight face anyway.
Hawaii's largest imports are crude and petroleum oil, with a total 2013 estimated value of slightly over $3 billion. Hawaii also imports aircraft, passenger vehicles, coal, semiconductors, jewelry, precious metals and propane. Hawaii's exports include aircraft parts, light oils and petroleum, ferrous scrap, fresh shrimp, aluminum waste and scrap, cocoa preparation, stainless steel scrap and paintings and drawings.
A sustainable existence is characterized by meeting the needs of the population in question without causing any overall deterioration of the larger system within which that population lives. The boundary of that "larger system" doesn't encompass only a set of islands in the middle of an ocean, it's the whole interconnected world.
The ability to see a Hawaii powered by renewable energy as "sustainable" is part of the lack of intellectual integrity I sometimes go on about. As long as Hawaii is linked to the global economy, then if the world economy is not sustainable, neither are they. The same goes for the rest of us.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)You assume that the Hawaiians “see a Hawaii powered by renewable energy as ‘sustainable.’” Essentially, you work on the assumption that they are simple-minded but, that somehow, you are enlightened, seeing the fundamental truth which they are ignoring.
http://www.oahumpo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Hawaii2050_Plan_FINAL.pdf
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)The Hawaiians can do whatever the fuck they want, and their politians can say whatever it takes to catapult the propaganda. It was your use of the word in reference to their actions that I was objecting to. Real sustainability involves far more than their redefinition of Brundtland:
A Hawai‘i that achieves the following:
> Respects the culture, character, beauty and history of our state’s island communities
> Strikes a balance between economic, social and community, and environmental priorities
> Meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
At this point a decent definition of sustainability involves expanding the boundaries of the system in question from a single society to the entire world, because the world is the system that meets the needs of all societies.
I'm not enlightened so much as I have an expanded sense of the boundaries of the world system. In the course of that expansion I turned over a few stones that revealed the speciousness of talking about "sustainable subsystems". If subsystems are open (in that they depend on bidirectional information, energy and material flows across their boundaries, as is the case for all societies on Earth today), no subsystem can be individually sustainable if the rest of the system is not. Unless, of course, one truncates and tortures the meaning of the word until it tells you what you want to hear, for political purposes.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)The Task Force engaged scholars at the University of Hawai‘i at Mänoa to research key issues of sustainability, particular to Hawai‘i. The “Hawai‘i 2050 Issue Book” was subsequently published, and is used as the factual foundation for better understanding sustainability issues in our state. The research reflects the latest information on key aspects of sustainability as of the date of this report, and should be updated appropriately in the years to come.
The following subjects were researched:
- …
- Energy. An evaluation of Hawai‘i’s energy needs, supplies, and demands, including use of alternative and renewable sources of energy were explored in this study.
- Agriculture. This study evaluates Hawai‘i’s food production capacity and consumption patterns, as well as describes various aspects of Hawai‘i’s agricultural industry and products.
- Environmental Quality. This study of Hawai‘i’s environmental quality, including air, water and endangered species, enables the Task Force to evaluate our efforts to preserve and enhance the environment.
- …
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 3, 2017, 02:51 PM - Edit history (1)
That statement tells me they don't share my definition of sustainability. IMO a subsystem (state, nation or region) can't balance economic and environmental priorities within its own boundaries when both those activities are significantly dependent on other subsystems over which it has little or no control.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)But not sustainability.
Resilience is a term with shadings. One can be resilient to varying degrees, able to rebound from greater or lesser intensities of shocks. A subsystem can be resilient without reference to other subsystems. Some individuals, nations and societies can be resilient, even if others are not.
Sustainability on the other hand can't be judged without reference to all other connected subsystems, and the system as a whole. Sustainability, IMO, is binary. One's actions are either sustainable, or they're not.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)What is your test for true sustainability?
If something can be done for only one year. Is it sustainable? Well, obviously, no. It’s not.
If something could be done for 1,000 years, would you consider it “sustainable?” Would you say that it is “more sustainable” than the thing which could only be done for a single year? What if we could do it for a million years? a billion? Do we asymptotically approach “sustainability?”
In the recent geological past, with little or no interference from us, our ecosystem has gone through fairly extreme climate change on a period of roughly 100,000 years. Does that mean that the climate itself is unsustainable?
Some day, our sun will exhaust the rest of its hydrogen. Does that mean that nothing is truly sustainable?
What if, a process completely destroys something, like deuterium for example (clearly unsustainable, right?) but what if it was used at such a slow rate that we would not consume our supply before the sun died?
Is the concept of sustainability meaningless?
If so, then, perhaps we should redefine it.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)An activity or situation is sustainable if it can be maintained in perpetuity, unless outside forces make such continuation impossible.
In other words, a sustainable activity does not degrade the ability of its environment to support the activity.
Solar hydrogen exhaustion is one of those outside factors.
The way the word is being used now is meaningless, and it should be discarded.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)Is deuterium fusion sustainable?
Is it “more sustainable” than burning petroleum?
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)The activity that it supports is what is or is not sustainable. If the human activity is the same in both cases, neither energy source would make it sustainable if it is not.
We might be able to keep kicking the human can down the road a bit longer using fusion (there's a big maybe on that, though) but by my definition the power source doesn't alter the fact that the activity itself is not sustainable. There are many more alligators in the swamp than just global warming. Most of them will not be defanged by having those cute humans switch to a low-carbon breakfast, lunch and dinner.
There is no such thing as "more sustainable" or "less sustainable" in my definition. It either is or it ain't.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)Popular usage is the only definition that matters.
I have plenty of definitions I cling to. However, if that’s not what people mean when they use a word, they’re right, and I’m the one who is wrong.
I don’t believe that our energy source makes us sustainable or not sustainable. There are a whole concert of factors which must be considered. However, sustainable energy sources are (in my estimation) a prerequisite to sustainable living.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)If you dig into it, there's no "there" there. So it should be eliminated from any rigorous discourse unless a definition is agreed on in advance, just like any other technical term. I don't care what some guy down a Arby's thinks the word means. if you and I are going to have a discussion about it, we need to agree on a definition, or the whole exercise is pointless.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I gave you mine, would you contribute yours? That way we'll have a better idea of how to have a conversation about it without tripping over semantics.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)I am a firm believer in “Stein’s Law” i.e. “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” (Or… it is unsustainable.)
However, in reality, nothing will go on forever.
So, what is sustainable? Clearly, the use of coal, is not sustainable. First off, there is a limited supply of it, secondly (since the Carboniferous era) nature doesn’t seem to have been creating any more. Thirdly, there’s this business about greenhouse gases…
The same goes for other “fossil fuels.”
Now, solar panels, typically require a good deal of silicon. However, we have a heck of a lot of it at our disposal, so I’m not terribly concerned about us exhausting global supplies of silicon. On the other hand, solar panels also use other less-common elements. Different solar panels use different amounts of these elements, or more abundant elements, so, some solar panels are “more sustainable” than others.
However, even the solar panels which use rarer metals are recyclable. Only in rare instances do we destroy atoms (and the production and use of solar panels is not one of them.) Just as the ore was originally refined to produce the metals for the solar panels, old solar panels can be shredded, and refined again producing those same metals.
Here’s a useful definition:
“Sustainability involves developing technology that can be productive over the long-term, using resources in ways that meet today’s needs without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs,” …
So, as a power source, I would say that solar panels are sustainable. Does that mean if a society uses only solar power to run its technology it will be sustainable? No.
Agricultural practices which deplete the soil, or lead to dead zones are unsustainable. However, that does not mean that no agricultural practices are sustainable. (I realize you disagree.)
Some practices may be sustainable to a point. For example, wood may be a “renewable resource,” but, once upon a time, we denuded much of Europe and then North America by cutting down trees faster than they could grow.
“Nature” has many cycles (“the Water cycle,” “the Carbon cycle,” “the Nitrogen cycle,” “the Phosphorus cycle”…) Cycles like these are sustainable. We get into trouble when we fail to close the loop.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Does your definition "...without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs,” take other species into account? Is the web of life included, or does sustainability apply primarily to humans and their activities, esp. technological ones? What about the overrunning of non-human habitat by human activity? How are the sustainability of diverse populations (say wolves and humans) prioritized when we put pressure on each other?
In my view, cutting trees more slowly than they can regrow is sustainable, cutting faster than they can regrow is not. It's not a case that the latter is merely "less sustainable" than the former, simply because we can do it for a while until we run out of trees. Activity relative to the replenishment rate of a resource is a sustainability factor, as is "collateral damage" from even sustainable resource usage.
My views on the sustainability of agriculture are undergoing a revision since my discovery of James DeMeo's "Saharasia theory". It's entirely possible that agriculture (or "horticulture+"?) as practiced by some indigenous peoples in the the Far East and the Americas was in fact sustainable, especially in the absence of draft animals. It now looks more like the patristic cultural attitudes that spread out of the Middle East and the Caucasus were the culprits when it came to transforming agriculture into a dominator model, in the same way that they affected politics and religion.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)My inclination is to say that sustainability should extend to the “web of life” since I believe the “web of life” sustains us.
However… let us look at a very different example. Consider a moon colony, powered by solar power or perhaps nuclear fusion using ³He found on the surface. Initially, they would rely heavily on supplies from Earth, but, they would need to become largely (if not entirely) self-sustaining. They would almost certainly need other life (fruits? vegetables? bacteria?) however, they might not require all of the great diversity of life we have on Earth.
If, you agree that a moon colony might, conceivably, be sustainable, then, in the same way, life on Earth might be sustainable without the great diversity as well.
Personally, I believe that there are many excellent reasons to maintain the richness of our ecosystem, and sentimentality is among the least of them. However, it is possible that human life might be sustainable without the full rich tapestry of life on Earth.
(Are mosquitoes really necessary? I honestly don’t know. Precaution tells me we had best treat them as if they are.)
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)The fact that the same word can be used without strict pre-definition in both those cases is why I think we're better off not using it. I am now sure that you and I have very different views of "sustainability", and that difference is rooted in very different understandings of the world and man's role in it. We're different people - imagine that! 
From a precautionary perspective, I'd say we should treat all other life on the planet as though it is essential. But it's far too late to honour that worldview, even if we wanted to.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)[font size=4]Definition of sustainable[/font]
- : capable of being sustained
- a : of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged <sustainable techniques> <sustainable agriculture>[br]b : of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods <sustainable society>
A sustainable moon colony may develop into its own sustainable moon civilization (cf. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.)
If a sustainable moon colony is even remotely possible, surely even a devastated Earth would be an easier place to establish sustainable colonies (we have 1g of gravity and a generally breathable atmosphere.) Even if the seas started pumping out hydrogen sulfide, the domed city has been a Science Fiction staple for more than a century. It is more technically feasible today than it ever was before. I won’t be terribly surprised to learn about plans in Dubai, or elsewhere (Las Vegas? Phoenix?) to start building fully domed cities, either to escape the heat, or the pollution.
http://www.thenational.ae/business/industry-insights/property/mall-of-the-world-largest-shopping-centre-on-the-planet-unveiled-in-dubai
Erect “vertical farms” and a brave new world approaches.
