Global Warming vs. You

[n2doc]

— By Kevin Drum| Fri Apr. 29, 2011 12:00 AM PDT

The New York Times ran a report yesterday about New Jersey residents who are outraged by new solar panels on utility poles that are ruining the bucolic splendor of their neighborhoods. Matt Yglesias takes a look at the accompanying photo and finds himself underwhelmed:

This is not a pastoral view disrupted by solar panels. It’s a view of utility polls, street lights, and overhead electrical wires—now with solar panels! It would be interesting to see if people actually preferred a pastoral view free of the accoutrements of electrification but I doubt anyone actually prefers that. Instead, the customary interjections of technology into the suburban landscape are normalized while any deviation from the postwar pattern is anathematized. Had people 100 years ago had this attitude, I suppose nobody would have telephone service or electricity at all.

...

I'm perpetually astonished by the level of NIMBYism pretty much everywhere. I mean, objecting to a toxic waste dump or something, that I get. But people who live in 100% built environments are remarkably resistant to even the most innocuous changes in that built environment, let alone things that might potentially have a minor but real impact. It's just a huge battle every time.

And in the non-built environment this is becoming a huge problem too. We need solar power and wind farms. But solar is no good if it's built in the sunny Mojave Desert because it might impact tortoise breeding grounds. Wind farms are no good if they mar the view off Hyannis Port or kill too many migrating birds. Everybody wants change, but nobody wants that change to occur anywhere that might affect their own backyard or their own pet cause. This is hardly breaking news, I know, but one of these days we're going to have to decide which is more important: marring our views a bit or preventing the planet from baking to death. I vote for the latter.

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/04/global-warming-vs-you

[WatsonT]

1. I'd rather have solar panels than power lines and telephone poles

those things are ugly.

/not that it's an either/or sort of thing, just saying if you're going to get up in arms about something spoiling your view those panels shouldn't be at the top of the list.

[Odin2005]

2. People are so damn stupid. I think they look cool.

[The2ndWheel]

3. "We need solar power and wind farms."

Want, not need. Want is always a bigger battle than need.

[txlibdem]

4. Need solar and wind power? Heck no, I love Global Climate Change

I've got my eye on some soon to be beach front property in Nevada. And whatever is left of Alaska will be able to grow all of our crops, we just have to plow the whole state under but that'll be just peachy.

[The2ndWheel]

5. Well, unfortunately for us, it's not just about carbon emissions

If it was just that, it really would be an very easy problem to solve.

[txlibdem]

11. No CO2 emissions will not be an easy problem to fix

We can require CO2 capture devices on all the coal plants. Ok. Now what do we do with all of that CO2?

"Complete combustion of 1 short ton (2,000 pounds) of this coal will generate about 5,720 pounds (2.86 short tons) of carbon dioxide."
...from http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/quarterly/co2_article/co2.html

"Around 5.9 billion tonnes of hard coal were used worldwide last year and 909 million tonnes of brown coal. Since 2000, global coal consumption has grown faster than any other fuel. The five largest coal users - China, USA, India, Japan and South Africa - account for 82% of total global coal use."
...from http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-of-coal/

Burning one ton of coal produces 2.86 tons of CO2, best explained below:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember back to High School Science when you learned the first few atoms in the periodic table of elements. Both Carbon and Oxygen are relatively close together on that table, so each atom ‘weighs’ approximately the same, so combining that one atom of Carbon with two atoms of Oxygen virtually triples the weight of the original Carbon atom.

...from http://papundits.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/why-does-one-ton-of-coal-make-286-tons-of-carbon-dioxide/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... this is easily confirmed by looking at any periodic table: carbon is element 6 and oxygen element 8, 6+8+8 (minus a few shared electrons) gives you the answer.

Let's just take the 5.9 billion and multiply by 2.86 and we get 16,874,000,000 (almost 17 billion tons of CO2).

So where will we store 17 billion tons of a gas each year? That is why carbon capture and storage is a total farce.

Or... did you mean that the easy solution is to replace all of the world's coal plants with renewables like solar, wind, geothermal power, tidal power, wave power. That would work too.

[guardian]

6. No big deal

Just one more thing cluttering up the view. I think most towns/cities back East are quite ugly due to the ubiquitous telephone/utilities poles and wires. Out West most utilities are buried. You'd think local governments would start burying utilities instead of whining everytime there is an ice storm or wind storm that disrupts power.

Regarding this particular story: I'd be more interested in seeing the cost benefit analysis of putting up these solar panels. It's probably a money pit with the only upside being some relative of the mayor or town council member got a sweet no-bid contract.

[Ship of Fools]

7. BO has it right

Change is hard (for some nutjobs)

[wtmusic]

8. You mean solar and wind have a negative impact?

Those panels are indeed eyesores and collect a laughably small amount of energy. They won't last a year.

[jpak]

10. Wanna bet?

:D

[jpak]

9. I visited relatives in SC and saw lots of PV panels on power poles - I thought 'Very Cool' until...

I found out they powered the emergency sirens for the local nuclear power plant

then I thought

the irony

yup