Coronavirus Has Temporarily Reduced China's CO2 Emissions By a Quarter (carbonbrief.org) 61
As China battles one of the most serious virus epidemics of the century, the impacts on the country's energy demand and emissions are only beginning to be felt. From a report: Electricity demand and industrial output remain far below their usual levels across a range of indicators, many of which are at their lowest two-week average in several years. These include:
Coal use at power stations reporting daily data at a four-year low.
Oil refinery operating rates in Shandong province at the lowest level since 2015.
Output of key steel product lines at the lowest level for five years.
Levels of NO2 air pollution over China down 36% on the same period last year.
Domestic flights are down up to 70% compared to last month.
All told, the measures to contain coronavirus have resulted in reductions of 15% to 40% in output across key industrial sectors. This is likely to have wiped out a quarter or more of the country's CO2 emissions over the past two weeks, the period when activity would normally have resumed after the Chinese new-year holiday. Over the same period in 2019, China released around 400m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2), meaning the virus could have cut global emissions by 100MtCO2 to date. The key question is whether the impacts are sustained, or if they will be offset -- or even reversed -- by the government response to the crisis.
Coal use at power stations reporting daily data at a four-year low.
Oil refinery operating rates in Shandong province at the lowest level since 2015.
Output of key steel product lines at the lowest level for five years.
Levels of NO2 air pollution over China down 36% on the same period last year.
Domestic flights are down up to 70% compared to last month.
All told, the measures to contain coronavirus have resulted in reductions of 15% to 40% in output across key industrial sectors. This is likely to have wiped out a quarter or more of the country's CO2 emissions over the past two weeks, the period when activity would normally have resumed after the Chinese new-year holiday. Over the same period in 2019, China released around 400m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2), meaning the virus could have cut global emissions by 100MtCO2 to date. The key question is whether the impacts are sustained, or if they will be offset -- or even reversed -- by the government response to the crisis.
Strange Days (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: Strange Days (Score:2)
Sad news for you, that would increase fossil fuel use by order of magnitude at least, to get raw materials into orbit and bring goods back.
Gravity is doing the real work (Score:2)
Sad news for you, that would increase fossil fuel use by order of magnitude at least, to get raw materials into orbit and bring goods back.
No, getting them back has very low energy requirements. How much CO2 is produced by ejecting a heat shield and deploying a parachute. Gravity after all is doing the real work.
heat shields aren't free (Score:2)
How much CO2 is produced by ejecting a heat shield and deploying a parachute.
How many heat shields do we make now? How many extra heat shields do we need to produce to put one on every fucking thing you want to make i space?
And then how much fossil fuels to send all the materials into space to make the heat shields as well as the products they protect?
Heat shields made in space (Score:2)
How much CO2 is produced by ejecting a heat shield and deploying a parachute.
How many heat shields do we make now? How many extra heat shields do we need to produce to put one on every fucking thing you want to make i space? And then how much fossil fuels to send all the materials into space to make the heat shields as well as the products they protect?
When we industrialize space the first products will be for further industrializing space. To expand space based industrial capabilities. What is lifted from earth is only what is needed to begin this process. Think of a basic crude 3D printer. You take that printer and make accessories for that printer to make it more capable. Then you make more printers. Bigger printers. Etc.
Similar story for raw materials. Your need to lift resources diminishes as your capabilities improve, as you harvest resources loc
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False, nothing you say is possible with chemical rockets, other propulsion systems would have to be used which are decades if not more than a century away. Please leave science and engineering to scientists and engineers.
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False, nothing you say is possible with chemical rockets, other propulsion systems would have to be used which are decades if not more than a century away. Please leave science and engineering to scientists and engineers.
You are ill informed, obviously you are not among the scientists and engineers of which you speak. Chemical rockets have already accessed the moon and there are resources there. NASA has already used ion engines on spacecraft visiting the asteroid belt, 2007 Dawn mission, where more resources may be found.
Also your "this decade" argument is a straw man. The topic was moving industrial production into space, therefore the timeframe is automatically decades into the future.
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I am not ill informed, do you know how much the lunar lander plus command module massed? Answer, NOT MUCH. We aren't sending mining colony to the moon with chemical rockets. Get that nonsense out of your head.
Ion engines can do even less for manned missions or cargo moves, meaning useless for such.
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I am not ill informed, do you know how much the lunar lander plus command module massed? Answer, NOT MUCH. We aren't sending mining colony to the moon with chemical rockets. Get that nonsense out of your head. Ion engines can do even less for manned missions or cargo moves, meaning useless for such.
Please, continue doubling down on your ignorance. The low massed LM and CM had small rocket motors. Guess what, one can also build large rocket motors. Guess what, with the discovery of water on the moon we have the ability to locally fuel those rockets. Similar with asteroids, local water and other chemistry. Now consider a rocket motor not the size of the LM motor but the size of a Saturn V first stage motor that is built and fueled locally in space. Now consider an array of those to suit a large bulky hi
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You completely ignored the immense energy requirements of getting stuff up there and blathered about the second phase of de-orbiting, which by the way is initiated with a fuel burn of course
Raw materials already in space (Score:2)
Sad news for you, that would increase fossil fuel use by order of magnitude at least, to get raw materials into orbit and bring goods back.
There are plenty of raw materials already in space. Lifting the bulk of raw materials from earth is temporary.
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sure, but we're not going to be getting to them by burning fuel as we do now. That is the realm of fission heated propellant or fusion
Already been to belt on ion engines, 2007-11 (Score:2)
sure, but we're not going to be getting to them by burning fuel as we do now. That is the realm of fission heated propellant or fusion
There are resources on the moon, we've already been there with chemical rockets. The 2007 Dawn mission used ion engines to visit the asteroid belt, more resources there too.
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So, the "Save the Environment, Kill Yourself" position is gaining more traction.
This is what China has inadvertently done in response to coronavirus. Get rid of enough people, and you also get rid of their energy usage and emissions. Of course that also means getting rid of their brainpower, their contribution to human civilization. But environmental activists assign zero value to civilization; in their view, spotted owls are more worthy of ruling the world than humans. They want us dead.
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In your worst case scenario places like Bangladesh and Florida will be gone; In your worst case scenario there will be mass migration of people (thus upheaval and conflict) In your worst case scenario currently productive farmland will be dryer and less productive (think the American mid-west) and other areas (think Canada and Russia) would be more productive.
But all this does not mean that " CO2 emissions are on
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I've been saying this for years. The people that shoot off their mouth about global warming could help by offing themselves. Less hot air, you know.
Plague, what can't it do? (Score:2)
So, we should support The Black Death in China?
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What is good for the US is that the trade war has removed some of the dependence on China, for my own business it is just impossible to get anything done. Can place orders but lead times are basically whatever. With companies saying they have 30 workers instead of over 300
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In other news, (while it won't ameliorate your situation), Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines... all of these and more are going balls-to-the-wall to build-out factories, court offshore manufacturing contracts...
One of the good things from all this is that a lot of the Third World (at least in Asia) stands ready to get a big boost out of poverty. One of the bad things from all this is that pollution and human misery is about to spread pretty far and wide...
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Do you have enough to eat when before you didn't?
Do you have running water when before you didn't?
Do you have indoor plumbing (going to the bathroom) when before you didn't.
If a $1/hr job provides the above then it's big fuking improvement.
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Covid-19 renamed Greta Flu (Score:4, Funny)
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How dare you!
(No, really... I like it - what's it take to rename a virus?)
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Who's to say the coronavirus wants to be associated with the likes of her?
As bad as Coronavirus is; it's still better than Zimavirus.
They would not cut their GDP for 'just the flu' (Score:1)
Re: They would not cut their GDP for 'just the flu (Score:1)
It isnâ(TM)t a flu. Do you guys not remember SARS? We go through virus outbreaks every so often. The planet doesnâ(TM)t stop spinning. The sun still comes up. You still need to go to work on Monday.
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The sun may rise up, but nobody will be there to see it.
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Most nations have stocks at a 2 month level.
Some city office has room for a 6 month supply of all low cost products?
They have just in time support from a van, truck as they have no 12 months of extra storage room in their small city office...
They call the supply company and they are told the computer says no.
Get given a month to call back as a date out into later 2020.
Whats the expert, professional to do?
A pack of 100 low cost
So we could cut global CO2 emissions by 25% (Score:2)
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Yes, although it is not a sustainable situation. Lots of work is just not being done. So it's basically confirming what we all knew : the more economic activity, the more pollution.
So people could actually breathe now (Score:4, Funny)
...if they didn't have to cough from the virus?
2130 people = 1/4 of China emissions (Score:2)
THey must have lived a good live!
4383 people per day (Score:5, Interesting)
So about 130,000 pollution fatalties per month.
Since a month ago, 2130 people have died of the coronavirus disease, almost all in China.
I wonder if the air pollution deaths have declined by more than 2130 people ( = about a 1.6% decline in air pollution deaths).
I
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It's not the coronavirus deaths themselves that are causing the impact. Rather, it's an effect of the efforts to contain the virus, and therefore people staying at home (whether by choice, enforcement or other) -- factories aren't going to run (hence less electricity generation needed, and less pollution caused by said factories and power plants) if the workforce isn't around to do the work. Same with the reduction in domestic flights: less freight (including the self-loading variety, aka "passengers") s
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Sure, and we can assume deaths caused by traffic accidents are way down as well. On the other hand, people are likely dying in droves from cardiac issues and the like, because the healthcare system is overwhelmed and people are isolated by curfews.
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These are only the numbers the CCP are releasing. Wuhan itself, not to mention other cities and regions now, is a city of more than 11 million people and it is in severe lockdown, as in nobody is allowed to leave their homes. How many more people are dead in their apartments that nobody has checked on? How do we know the numbers being released are accurate?
May also reduce US Canadian emissions too (Score:4, Interesting)
In related news, the shutdown of China has dropped demand for exported coal, LNG, and dilbit oil that was supposed to have pipelines built for export, and made it uneconomical, even with massive fossil fuel subsidies, to export overseas.
This may reduce both Canadian and US emissions as well, while renewables continue to quickly replace the far more expensive fossil fuels as energy sources.
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Doesn't pass the smell test (Score:2)
I don't trust jack shit coming out of China.
On the other hand, if this is true then we should all batten down the hatches and stockpile our food and ammo, cuz this sucker is much worse than China wants us to believe.
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Well, there's a spectrum of possibilities.
One is that it has only have killed a few thousand people and that China is taking extremely aggressive measures to contain it in order to ensure that it doesn't spread, because the economic projections of what would happen due to an epidemic are worse than the projections of what would happen from these measures. Aggressive measures are the only way to stop an epidemic of a disease that spreads rapidly.
The other end of the spectrum is, well, Bring out your Dead!
I
Planet self defense? (Score:1)
This desease is terrible. A lot of suffering in many dimensions, beyond the disease by itself.
And, at the same time, looks as a method for the planet to defend itself from us humans. Not a nice one but an effective one.
The same happens with any type of life form that uses the environment beyond its limit, be ants, locust, etc.
Breath (Score:2)
Stop living == stop breathing == no CO2. What a concept.
Lies, this is really too good to be true (Score:2)
what is the impact? (Score:2)
so besides the co2 reduction, what is the actual impact on the economy?
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Population Explosion (Score:1)