Fusion, another step closer?

[Squire Doodad]

To put it a different way - planting trees is great, and has a variety of benefits on ecological, atmospheric, and cultural levels.
However, even if you were to plant a million new trees, that's not the same as a million old growth forest trees as those saplings need to grow for years, so keeping preexisting forests safe is important and setting up artificial photosynthesis to have a different solution is also very useful.

Though it is worth noting that regardless of all of that, eating less meat and participating in tree planting events of various kinds are still great ways to handle the GHG issue. Not to mention taking a longer train ride instead of a plane trip (surprisingly viable in Europe), and so on.
I can also talk at length about how while society-scale implementation of those changes would save the day, so would a handful of corporations being environmentally friendly instead of doing screw-all about it, but that's a much much longer discussion.

[Cikomyr2]

To put it a different way - planting trees is great, and has a variety of benefits on ecological, atmospheric, and cultural levels.
However, even if you were to plant a million new trees, that's not the same as a million old growth forest trees as those saplings need to grow for years, so keeping preexisting forests safe is important and setting up artificial photosynthesis to have a different solution is also very useful.

Though it is worth noting that regardless of all of that, eating less meat and participating in tree planting events of various kinds are still great ways to handle the GHG issue. Not to mention taking a longer train ride instead of a plane trip (surprisingly viable in Europe), and so on.
I can also talk at length about how while society-scale implementation of those changes would save the day, so would a handful of corporations being environmentally friendly instead of doing screw-all about it, but that's a much much longer discussion.

I had an idea the other day about making large fields of perma culture. A self-sustainable ecosystem of feeding plants that absorb carbon and keep growing and self-sustaining. Deliberately engineered and maintained by Farmer Rangers.

[NichG]

To put it a different way - planting trees is great, and has a variety of benefits on ecological, atmospheric, and cultural levels.
However, even if you were to plant a million new trees, that's not the same as a million old growth forest trees as those saplings need to grow for years, so keeping preexisting forests safe is important and setting up artificial photosynthesis to have a different solution is also very useful.

Though it is worth noting that regardless of all of that, eating less meat and participating in tree planting events of various kinds are still great ways to handle the GHG issue. Not to mention taking a longer train ride instead of a plane trip (surprisingly viable in Europe), and so on.
I can also talk at length about how while society-scale implementation of those changes would save the day, so would a handful of corporations being environmentally friendly instead of doing screw-all about it, but that's a much much longer discussion.

Though any individual-level approach basically doesn't scale well enough compared to systematic approaches to move the needle in practice. If you took all the people willing to change their lifestyles and made them maximally negative-carbon, that still wouldn't counter-balance a single regulatory decision...

[Squire Doodad]

I had an idea the other day about making large fields of perma culture. A self-sustainable ecosystem of feeding plants that absorb carbon and keep growing and self-sustaining. Deliberately engineered and maintained by Farmer Rangers.

So kind of like seeding those vast plots of empty grass that are all over the place with edible plants for the city to use? You could probably stick fruit trees near highways or something if you want to, though exhaust would limit this potential somewhat.
The goal is to maximize diversity and carbon capture, so planting native cranberries is great even if their useful yields boil down to feeding a handful of wandering campers over the course of 5 years.

Though any individual-level approach basically doesn't scale well enough compared to systematic approaches to move the needle in practice. If you took all the people willing to change their lifestyles and made them maximally negative-carbon, that still wouldn't counter-balance a single regulatory decision...

I mean that would because it would in turn consist of what a governmental regulatory decision would aim for and probably influence company regulatory decisions
But yeah point taken, the best way to do the most good with the least changes to your lifestyle is to do the easy stuff for yourself and then push heavily in favor of ecologically sound policy. Or at least the less ecologically-destructive ones.

[Radar]

I mean that would because it would in turn consist of what a governmental regulatory decision would aim for and probably influence company regulatory decisions
But yeah point taken, the best way to do the most good with the least changes to your lifestyle is to do the easy stuff for yourself and then push heavily in favor of ecologically sound policy. Or at least the less ecologically-destructive ones.

Otherwise quite a lot of coastal areas (where most people in the world live actually) would face this. Ozone layer crisis has shown that a global action can make a huge difference, but with greenhouse gasses it is not that easy as we basically need to shift whole branches of industry into new directions.

[Lord Torath]

New energy storage system: Polymer Batteries

From Science Friday

The CEO of PolyJoule was on the program, and hyped the environmentally friendliness of the batteries, which do not require mining of copper, kobalt, lithium, etc, but neglected to mention that plastic comes from oil, merely mentioning that they use plastic feedstock, which already has supply lines in place. He also pushed that at end-of-life, plastic is recyclable, which is a very iffy thing to assert these days, but it may be true, since I don't know specifically what types of plastic these are made of. It is true that the 1% of lead-acid batteries that aren't recycled tend to poison the landscape, and that lithium-ion batteries are pretty nasty when their usable life is over. But plastic decomposition into microplastics is a real problem. I'm kind of disappointed in Ira Flatow for not pushing back on those issues. Oh well.

A couple other notes:
According to the Science Friday segment, these batteries are very safe. They don't catch fire like lithium batteries, and can be punctured when fully charged without risk of explosion or chemical leakage. They are good for over 20,000 charge/discharge cycles (last year they were rated for 12,000 cycles, so it's possible that 20k is not the limit).

They have about 20% of the energy density by volume of standard lithium-ion batteries, so these are not going to be powering your car or cell phone. The CEO says he envisions them being used for Wind/Solar energy storage in large-scale facilities. Or possibly occupying a cabinet in the average person's home.

[Squire Doodad]

New energy storage system: Polymer Batteries

From Science Friday

The CEO of PolyJoule was on the program, and hyped the environmentally friendliness of the batteries, which do not require mining of copper, kobalt, lithium, etc, but neglected to mention that plastic comes from oil, merely mentioning that they use plastic feedstock, which already has supply lines in place.
[snip]
They have about 20% of the energy density by volume of standard lithium-ion batteries, so these are not going to be powering your car or cell phone. The CEO says he envisions them being used for Wind/Solar energy storage in large-scale facilities. Or possibly occupying a cabinet in the average person's home.

I mean it sounds like an interesting field of research, plastic feedstock for a portion of batteries is still an improvement over lithium or cobalt mining.
I don't know how long-term viable it is but hey more options are nice I guess.

[Bohandas]

IIRC some plastics can also be produced directly from plants, rather than from oil. I'm not sure if the particular plastics used in this device can be, but I know that some can.

[Mastikator]

IIRC some plastics can also be produced directly from plants, rather than from oil. I'm not sure if the particular plastics used in this device can be, but I know that some can.

Dude we're eating almost a gram of microplastic a day so unless you also recall that plastics can be converted into plants I'm not interested. When oil goes to the grave I hope it takes plastics with it.

[halfeye]

Dude we're eating almost a gram of microplastic a day

Er, no? That is approximately one cubic centimetre, I'm pretty sure we'd actually notice that.

[NichG]

Er, no? That is approximately one cubic centimetre, I'm pretty sure we'd actually notice that.

That's around 0.1% of the total daily mass of food you eat, and plastic is biologically pretty inert, so I don't know that you'd notice.

That said, for similar reasons, I'm not particularly bothered by the idea of it either, short of specific claims or studies showing particular negative effects at scales I care about...

[halfeye]

That's around 0.1% of the total daily mass of food you eat, and plastic is biologically pretty inert, so I don't know that you'd notice.

I still want to see a citation for that. Wikipedia says 70,000 particles a year, with a maximum length of 5mm, which is relatively huge, but I still don't think a gram is a reasonable gross mass without the texture at least being noticable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics

That said, for similar reasons, I'm not particularly bothered by the idea of it either, short of specific claims or studies showing particular negative effects at scales I care about...

[Mastikator]

Er, no? That is approximately one cubic centimetre, I'm pretty sure we'd actually notice that.

Er yes, really. https://graphics.reuters.com/ENVIRON...2MQ/index.html

People could be ingesting the equivalent of a credit card of plastic a week, a recent study by WWF International concluded, mainly in drinking water but also via sources like shellfish, which tend to be eaten whole so the plastic in their digestive systems is also consumed.

You eat a credit card of plastic every week.

[halfeye]

Er yes, really. https://graphics.reuters.com/ENVIRON...2MQ/index.html

You eat a credit card of plastic every week.

A gram is a lot. A credit card is a lot too, but I would guess it's less than a gram.

The article (which is journalism not scientific, and quotes the WWF, which is a charity and also not scientific) says in drinking water and shellfish, most weeks I don't eat shellfish at all. I would plainly see 5mm chunks of plastic in drinking water, they may be thinking of nanoplastics which are small enough to be invisible, but they said micro-plastics, which are big.

[NichG]

A gram is a lot. A credit card is a lot too, but I would guess it's less than a gram.

Quick search says a credit card is about 5 grams. To double check, dimensions are ~ 0.1cm by 8cm by 5cm, so that's about 4 cm^3, so it checks out.

[georgie_leech]

While I'm also concerned about the potential harms of microplastics, the specific quoted rate of Credit Card per Week is unlikely to be true.

[Lord Torath]

While I'm also concerned about the potential harms of microplastics, the specific quoted rate of Credit Card per Week is unlikely to be true.

Thanks for that! I've shared it with my family.

Fun little bit about how we might conceivably be able to deal with our plastics disposal problem:
These plastic-munching superworms are living recycling plants from SyFy-Wire

[crayzz]

The vast majority of micro plastics come from polymeric textile laundering (acrylic, polyester, nylon, etc clothing mostly) and wear and tear on plastic/rubber materials, mostly tyres on roads. How we handle plastic waste disposal isn't really relevant to the issue AFAIK.

[Cikomyr2]

The vast majority of micro plastics come from polymeric textile laundering (acrylic, polyester, nylon, etc clothing mostly) and wear and tear on plastic/rubber materials, mostly tyres on roads. How we handle plastic waste disposal isn't really relevant to the issue AFAIK.

not to the Fusion Power thread anyway.

I get that "how much plastic is released in nature and how much it damages the environment" is a real important topic, and if we want to open a thread to discuss it go ahead.

[Squire Doodad]

The vast majority of micro plastics come from polymeric textile laundering (acrylic, polyester, nylon, etc clothing mostly) and wear and tear on plastic/rubber materials, mostly tyres on roads. How we handle plastic waste disposal isn't really relevant to the issue AFAIK.

I mean nurdles also enter the waters in considerable quantities as a result of raw mats for plastic production being shipped and leaking out. There's lots of different sources that can be fixed.
Bamboo fabrics aren't a good option but bamboo substitutes for, say, plastic cutting boards seems good

[Yora]

Greenwalds Law reworked, looks like, when operation, fusion reactors could create even more energy than previously thought:

https://www.livescience.com/fusion-r...uce-more-power

That's cool.

Nice that just for once we find the goal to be actually closer than we assumed, instead of further away.