It's 2019 and as an engineer responsible for designing large power plants with the potential to emit large amounts of Carbon over the next 50 years, I'm doing everything in my f*cking power every day to eliminate harmful emissions despite "leadership" (regulators & funders) pushing for higher poluting alternatives that they erroneously believed to be lower cost. We simply can't wait around for these lazy ding-dongs to take action.
> Within our current economic system, any country that will try to _really_ do something will face severe recession.
I respectfully disagree. From my experience, it's quite simply a matter of laziness and weak, shortsighted people.
I've worked in my industry (cargo ship design) for 18 years. Most ships operate on straight-up large diesel engines (20-30MW+ installed power) burning low quality high-sulfer diesel. Multiply that by many ships per class operating virtually continuously for 40-50 years, and you've just dumped an enormous amount of carbon into the atmosphere.
Because ship operators (government and commercial) won't curb emissions on their own, because they THINK it costs more (and it can over the 10 years they'll be in their position of leadership), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) imposes emission regulations, which is forcing ship owners to add exhaust scrubbers, SCRs, etc. However, use of these are only imposed in Emission Control Areas (ECA's near coastlines).
The truth is that with very little ingenuity, you can transition to a dual fuel LNG powered diesel plants (with no Methane slip) to virtually quash NOx and SOx emissions. Yes it's harder (i.e. don't be lazy), and yes in costs more up front (i.e. don't be weak/shortsighted), buts it's achievable even if you aren't forced to do it. On top of that, you can add simple smart controllers to your plant and hotel services, and make other adjustments to the hull form/propeller to improve ship energy efficiency 10% or more.
My engineering team has implemented similar measures simply by telling leadership that this is how the plant needs to be designed. Period. They are not going to design the ship themselves. We've largely balanced the cost by minimizing innefficiencies in other areas (e.g. plant/hotel service controls). It just takes a little time and effort rather than taking the easy route and pulling a 40 year-old design off the shelf and calling it a day.
In the long run, the owner will save money in operating costs, and will actually be a more efficient money-making maching due to the decreased time spent refueling and repairing the ship (improved efficiency means less wear on hardware). All while also decreasing pollution.
I don't feel LNG is enough though, and I'm now setting my sights on zero-emission, H2-powered autonomous shipping (and yes, liquid and compressed H2 is a readily available fuel supply at piers; it's been used in many industries for decades). The technology is available, so we're implementing it. It's really not that hard. The hardest part are synthetic (I.e. safety regulators, merchant marine unions who fear loss of jobs).
These barriers have their purpose, but a lot of people are lazy and just toss up their hands saying "it's too hard" or "it costs too much", without doing the little bit of work needed to say, "no, it's not".
The power is in the hands of the engineers who build the world, not regulators or customers who move money around. Sure, without money and legal runway, better "stuff" won't get built, but without engineers, money/laws alone are not enough to build new "stuff".
...and regarding environmental controls instigating a recession, that is very far from the truth (again, in my experience).
Extending the above 'ship design industry' example, when IMO imposed emission caps on ships, did the shipping industry (and supporting industries) faulter or thrive? They're thriving. Why? Because they need to build new things to replace the old things.
-MAN B&W and Wartsilla (Engine Manufacturuers) are now building dual-fuel engines.
-These guys, and their affiliates are offering Exhaust Scrubbing systems (e.g., EGRs, SCRs, Scrubbers, etc.).
-Because of the increase in SCR's, there is now a new, large market for UREA (the active agent, basically Ammonia, in SCR's)
-Propeller manufacturers are offering more hydrodynamic designs, and tow-test tanks are employed to help design those propellers and hydro-improved hull forms.
-New companies have sprouted up (e.g. Energy Focus, etc) just to supply energy efficient LED lighting for ships.
-Contractors are being employed to design new LNG-fuel supply infrastructure to piers world-wide. New training facilities/programs are being built to teach sailors/shore crew how to safely handle LNG.
-Marine hardware suppliers now have a host of new products to sell to meet the demand for energy efficient plants (e.g., high accuracy fuel mass flow meters, shaft torque/thrust sensors, tank gauges, smart controls for HVAC plants, low-power water production units, etc.)
-Companies have sprouted up to supply newly conceived "energy dashboards" that use genetic and machine-learning algorithms to find optimized ship operating configuration (speed, equipment line-up, trim, etc) for a given set of environmental/mission inputs (e.g. weather, voyage plan, etc.).
-I could go on for a long-long time.
Does this sound like a recession to you???
The argument that increasing environmental regulation will stifle the economy is just not true. From what I've seen, the opposite is true. Competition is spurred and new markets emerge, putting more people to work in jobs that actually matter.
If we're not careful about the climate there might not be any people to laugh in 2500. Climate change is having a material impact on our society today. People are dying.
It's 2500 and we finally stabilized earths orbit and removed the wobble, thus stabilizing climate changes. Sorry about 2283, the year of the "oops, no gravity" for a disturbing 14 seconds of everything floating.
> So Sila Kiliccote and I take that leap. Sitting in her kitchen, with solar panels overhead and an electric car parked outside, we pretend that it has happened. It's 2050 and we've stopped climate change.
Yeah right, what about the 3+ billion people living in asia/africa below what's known as poverty in US/EU ? Do they also live in high tech houses on top of hills, powered by solar panels and batteries, drinking latte macchiatos from an $3k coffee machine and having an electric car / access to helicopters ? Or is this reserved to the elite and they're still manufacturing 90% of our gadgets in heavily polluted and overcrowded cities ?
> Now, because the animals are growing so much faster
SV is so insanely disconnected from reality, it now sounds more like religious prophecies than reasonable predictions; repeat after me "tech will solve all our issues".
The only reason we'd stop polluting is if it gets financially more profitable not to pollute, nothing more than a beneficial side effect.
“Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!”
Not really, but maybe instead of running blindly ahead and applying more of the cause of our issues we should stop and make conscious decisions. Right now it seems that we forgot technology should serve us, not the other way around.
Writing best case (science fiction) scenarios isn't going to do anything good, it might even make people feel good about themselves and "wait" for the problem to be fixed. Pollution is a social/economical/political issue, not a technological one. Innovating in the later while stagnating in the former won't do much.
> Basically, what we've done is, we've limited through-traffic for cars," Keesmaat says. It forced cars away from King Street and launched a whole cascade of changes.
Look, now that we banned everything else, people are enthusiastically buying what we sell! Isn't that wonderful? Such progress!
17 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 43.4 ms ] threadWithin our current economic system, any country that will try to _really_ do something will face severe recession.
> Within our current economic system, any country that will try to _really_ do something will face severe recession.
I respectfully disagree. From my experience, it's quite simply a matter of laziness and weak, shortsighted people.
I've worked in my industry (cargo ship design) for 18 years. Most ships operate on straight-up large diesel engines (20-30MW+ installed power) burning low quality high-sulfer diesel. Multiply that by many ships per class operating virtually continuously for 40-50 years, and you've just dumped an enormous amount of carbon into the atmosphere.
Because ship operators (government and commercial) won't curb emissions on their own, because they THINK it costs more (and it can over the 10 years they'll be in their position of leadership), the International Maritime Organization (IMO) imposes emission regulations, which is forcing ship owners to add exhaust scrubbers, SCRs, etc. However, use of these are only imposed in Emission Control Areas (ECA's near coastlines).
The truth is that with very little ingenuity, you can transition to a dual fuel LNG powered diesel plants (with no Methane slip) to virtually quash NOx and SOx emissions. Yes it's harder (i.e. don't be lazy), and yes in costs more up front (i.e. don't be weak/shortsighted), buts it's achievable even if you aren't forced to do it. On top of that, you can add simple smart controllers to your plant and hotel services, and make other adjustments to the hull form/propeller to improve ship energy efficiency 10% or more.
My engineering team has implemented similar measures simply by telling leadership that this is how the plant needs to be designed. Period. They are not going to design the ship themselves. We've largely balanced the cost by minimizing innefficiencies in other areas (e.g. plant/hotel service controls). It just takes a little time and effort rather than taking the easy route and pulling a 40 year-old design off the shelf and calling it a day.
In the long run, the owner will save money in operating costs, and will actually be a more efficient money-making maching due to the decreased time spent refueling and repairing the ship (improved efficiency means less wear on hardware). All while also decreasing pollution.
I don't feel LNG is enough though, and I'm now setting my sights on zero-emission, H2-powered autonomous shipping (and yes, liquid and compressed H2 is a readily available fuel supply at piers; it's been used in many industries for decades). The technology is available, so we're implementing it. It's really not that hard. The hardest part are synthetic (I.e. safety regulators, merchant marine unions who fear loss of jobs).
These barriers have their purpose, but a lot of people are lazy and just toss up their hands saying "it's too hard" or "it costs too much", without doing the little bit of work needed to say, "no, it's not".
The power is in the hands of the engineers who build the world, not regulators or customers who move money around. Sure, without money and legal runway, better "stuff" won't get built, but without engineers, money/laws alone are not enough to build new "stuff".
Extending the above 'ship design industry' example, when IMO imposed emission caps on ships, did the shipping industry (and supporting industries) faulter or thrive? They're thriving. Why? Because they need to build new things to replace the old things.
-MAN B&W and Wartsilla (Engine Manufacturuers) are now building dual-fuel engines.
-These guys, and their affiliates are offering Exhaust Scrubbing systems (e.g., EGRs, SCRs, Scrubbers, etc.).
-Because of the increase in SCR's, there is now a new, large market for UREA (the active agent, basically Ammonia, in SCR's)
-Propeller manufacturers are offering more hydrodynamic designs, and tow-test tanks are employed to help design those propellers and hydro-improved hull forms.
-New companies have sprouted up (e.g. Energy Focus, etc) just to supply energy efficient LED lighting for ships.
-Contractors are being employed to design new LNG-fuel supply infrastructure to piers world-wide. New training facilities/programs are being built to teach sailors/shore crew how to safely handle LNG.
-Marine hardware suppliers now have a host of new products to sell to meet the demand for energy efficient plants (e.g., high accuracy fuel mass flow meters, shaft torque/thrust sensors, tank gauges, smart controls for HVAC plants, low-power water production units, etc.)
-Companies have sprouted up to supply newly conceived "energy dashboards" that use genetic and machine-learning algorithms to find optimized ship operating configuration (speed, equipment line-up, trim, etc) for a given set of environmental/mission inputs (e.g. weather, voyage plan, etc.).
-I could go on for a long-long time.
Does this sound like a recession to you???
The argument that increasing environmental regulation will stifle the economy is just not true. From what I've seen, the opposite is true. Competition is spurred and new markets emerge, putting more people to work in jobs that actually matter.
Yeah right, what about the 3+ billion people living in asia/africa below what's known as poverty in US/EU ? Do they also live in high tech houses on top of hills, powered by solar panels and batteries, drinking latte macchiatos from an $3k coffee machine and having an electric car / access to helicopters ? Or is this reserved to the elite and they're still manufacturing 90% of our gadgets in heavily polluted and overcrowded cities ?
> Now, because the animals are growing so much faster
Oh but we already do that, it doesn't look good though: http://www.veterinaryworld.org/Vol.2/November/Sudden%20Death...
SV is so insanely disconnected from reality, it now sounds more like religious prophecies than reasonable predictions; repeat after me "tech will solve all our issues". The only reason we'd stop polluting is if it gets financially more profitable not to pollute, nothing more than a beneficial side effect.
“Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!”
Writing best case (science fiction) scenarios isn't going to do anything good, it might even make people feel good about themselves and "wait" for the problem to be fixed. Pollution is a social/economical/political issue, not a technological one. Innovating in the later while stagnating in the former won't do much.
Look, now that we banned everything else, people are enthusiastically buying what we sell! Isn't that wonderful? Such progress!
"Doctor" a young nurse comes up to me with a clipboard, "I was wondering...when should we tell her the truth?"
I take the clipboard from her and begin walking to my next patient. "Don't be too hasty. Reality is just too much for some people."