Chapter 2: A Quickly Changing Planet is a Bad Planet
This is Chapter 2 from free climate book?A Plan to Save the Planet.
Electricity in a Nutshell
A watt (W) is a unit of electrical power, and a watt flowing over a period of time is a unit of energy. For example, one thousand watts flowing for one hour is a kilowatt-hour (1 kWh), and one trillion watts flowing for one hour is a terawatt-hour (1 TWh).
Total electricity consumption during 2021 was 8,500 TWh in China, 4,200 TWh in the U.S., and 1,700 TWh in India. The typical U.S. home consumes 10,000 kWh of electricity each year at an average cost of 14￠ per kilowatt-hour (EIA, May 2021). This is the retail price, and it includes the cost of generation and distribution. Alternatively, the wholesale price refers to a large quantity at the front gate of a power generation facility.
“Green” electricity does not emit CO2 and is primarily generated by solar panels, wind farms, hydroelectric dams, and nuclear power plants. This typically costs 3￠ to 6￠ per kWh wholesale. Alternatively, carbon-based electricity is generated by burning coal or natural gas at a typical wholesale cost of 2￠ to 4￠ per kWh. Consumers often receive a blend of green and carbon-based electricity. For example, if 20% is 4￠ green electricity, and 80% is 3￠ natural gas based electricity, the blend would cost 3.2￠ per kWh ((20% x 4￠) + (80% x 3￠)).
Power company engineers are tasked with providing electricity at lowest cost, independent of CO2. They do this unless given further instructions from government or customers who can request greener electricity, even if it cost more.
CO2 in a Nutshell
Quantities of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) are defined by their weight. For example, one metric ton (1 mtCO2) and one billion metric tons (1 GtCO2) both refer to CO2 quantities. For reference, one metric ton is 1000 kilograms (2,204LBs) and one short ton is 2,000Lbs (907kg).
The typical U.S. gas car emits 4.6 metric tons of CO2 each year (4.6mtCO2/yr). And the typical U.S. home emits 4.1 metric tons each year due to electricity consumption (4.1mtCO2/yr).
In most countries, the lowest cost way to make electricity is to burn coal, and this emits 1kg (2.2LBs) of CO2 for each kWh of electricity. Alternatively, one can burn natural gas, and emit 0.4kg (0.9LBs) of CO2 per kWh.??
Annual CO2 emissions are 10 billion tons from China, 5 billion tons from America, and 2.5 billion tons from India. Approximately one-third is due to making electricity with natural gas and coal, one-third from pushing vehicles with gasoline and diesel fuel, and one-third from making heat within factories and buildings with natural gas and coal. Worldwide, CO2 emissions keep going up, as shown below.
The Problem with CO2
The Earth is an 8,000 mile (13K km) diameter sphere covered by a 60 miles (100 km) thick atmosphere. Incoming radiation from the sun passes through the atmosphere as it travels toward land. And outgoing radiation from the land travels in the opposite direction toward outer space.
The Earth gets warmer if outgoing radiation decreases, or incoming radiation increases. And radiation decreases if it bumps into molecules in the atmosphere that deflect. Also, the type of outgoing radiation is different than the type of incoming radiation. The outgoing type deflects more easily.
Scientists approximately 100 years ago placed different gases and different types of radiation into desk-sized laboratory chambers and measured deflection. They observed some molecules and some types of radiation deflect more than others. For example, greenhouse gases such as CO2 and CH4 (methane) deflect more than the typical air molecule.
When a photon travels through the atmosphere, it passes approximately 300,000,000 air molecules each meter as it travels 100,000 meters. The photon only needs to bump into one molecule along its path to deflect. For this reason, a relatively small amount of CO2 can have an impact.
The Food Problem
Additional heat causes land to dry out. And dryer soil often produces less food. When people do not have enough food, they typically move to areas with more food. And this can lead to overcrowding, shortages, and high prices. The wealthy buy what they need when prices are high, while the poor struggle. And this can lead to social unrest, more police, and gated communities. We are observing some of this already, in part due to climate change. However, it is unclear when, where and how it will get worse.
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Migration does not necessarily need to be a problem. If the rate of adding food production and housing is greater than the rate of adding population, then shortages and high prices are less likely.
The Tipping Points Problem
Another problem with CO2 is the possibility that a not well-understood positive feedback loop will make the situation worse than expected. For example, thawing permafrost could potentially release greenhouse gas methane more than expected. And this could lead to more warming and more thawing.
The Sea Level Rise Problem
Eventually our civilization will stop putting CO2 into the atmosphere and the planet will stop warming. However, after we stop emitting CO2, the additional temperature will hover for thousands of years as the CO2 slowly falls back to earth, and the temperature slowly reverts back to its original level.
As the elevated temperature hovers for thousands of years, it will slowly melt a 2000 meter-thick slab of ice on Antarctica (i.e. the South Pole). And this will cause the sea to rise and cover coastal cities. Sea level is expected to rise slowly. Perhaps one to two meters every 100 years. However, after 30 to 300 years, this will be a problem for many coastal areas.
A Quickly Changing Planet is a Bad Planet
In theory, civilization can move to areas that are more suitable. However, this entails a race between a changing planet, and the builders of metropolitan areas. If the planet changes faster than the civilization can build, there will be suffering.
The degree of suffering is likely to be proportional to the rate of planet changing, not the absolute amount. For example, if it takes 1000 years to flood coastal cities, and each building lasts 100 years, then new buildings would probably not be built in areas that are flooded in their lifetime.
In summary, a quickly changing planet is a bad planet.
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