The impending environmental disaster

[bloodiedathame]

*Known reserves... they keep finding more. We are moving from 'easy oil' onto harder to extract oil but it certainly isnt going to just run out.

Sure, but there will be diminishing returns for oil companies to extract that oil. There will be a day when it's just not financially viable to extract any more, even if there is still 'some' in the ground. The longer we delay making the technology we need to move to renewables the more expensive it could get.

Before we get to that point it makes sense to use a proportion of what we can still get our hands on to create technologies that help us harness renewables wind/tidal/solar/geothermal etc and move to a sustainable power model.

 

[Tefal]

Ta for that. I've been wondering about the viability if mining landfill for a while, and the ELFM document I found after your post was pretty interesting reading.

I'd guess not all landfill sites are equal- domestic waste prior to the start of the recycling era would probably be more lucrative in terms of metals reclamation, for example.

Yeah its come a long way it seems in terms of practicality with large scale equipment being made. Back when I learned about it was more pie in the sky stuff

 

[Tefal]

Sure, but there will be diminishing returns for oil companies to extract that oil. There will be a day when it's just not financially viable to extract any more, even if there is still 'some' in the ground. The longer we delay making the technology we need to move to renewables the more expensive it could get.

Before we get to that point it makes sense to use a proportion of what we can still get our hands on to create technologies that help us harness renewables wind/tidal/solar/geothermal etc and move to a sustainable power model.

First flight engine powered 100% by artifical fuel was carried out the other week.


In Heathrow some flights are up to 30% already (current engines only rated for 50% of the fuel being non fossil)

 

[bloodiedathame]

First flight engine powered 100% by artifical fuel was carried out the other week.


In Heathrow some flights are up to 30% already (current engines only rated for 50% of the fuel being non fossil)

Ah thanks for that. I was scratching my head just the other day about synthetic fuels and oils etc. Will have a read.

I did a bit of work with Rolls Royce and their Accel (all-electric air speed attempt a few years ago).

 

[FoxEye]

No its not already 1 ton of mobile phones possess more gold than 1 ton of rock from a high quality gold mine.

In future the hydrocarbons and metals in landfills will be a concentrated resource source they will be dug back up. Heck we already capture the methane from some of them for fuel.

It's not hard to strip landfill contents to Ash (mineral oxides) it's just energy intensive once you have lots of energy to spare (fusion or renewables) all you need is water and pressure. No matter how much of a "biohazard" it is.

That we may choose to extract some minerals from landfill is neither here nor there. If that's your justification for not doing anything to reduce waste, it's a very poor one.

Food waste is the largest single constituent of landfill, but plastic is a very close second. (Between them food waste and plastic account for almost 50% of landfill by volume).

What happens to all that plastic? Well, the evidence is that it carries on being plastic, albeit it turns into smaller and smaller particles. Particles which can enter the food chain and cause as-yet unknown damage to life on Earth, including to us. Some plastics may never decompose, as far as we know.

But also, plastic that is buried is a problem because it means we need to produce new plastic to replace it. Because we are unable to wean ourselves off dependence on plastic.

None of that is changed by some small-scale mineral deposits in yonks old landfill. Remember as another chap said, modern landfill tries to separate electronics out so that it doesn't get buried in the first place.

Our landfills filled with plastic are best described as a "biohazard" as I said earlier - not as a "resource" as you claim. All that plastic waste isn't valuable, won't be re-used, and is 100% just a ticking ecological time-bomb. We already catch fish filled with microplastics, and there's already evidence that it's building up inside our bodies.

Being so flippant about waste (esp landfill) because "it stays on Earth, it doesn't go anywhere" is totally missing the point. We're changing inert compounds (or at least, relatively safe if they remain deep underground) into really destructive compounds and dangerous waste.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

No its not already 1 ton of mobile phones possess more gold than 1 ton of rock from a high quality gold mine..

1 ton of mobiles is a concentrated source, gold ore isn't. You've got to collect 'em first and most people chuck 'em in the bin rather than a mobile phone bank

 

[FoxEye]

And in any case, why should we rely on future generation to bail us out?

"In future somebody may be able to extract that buried plastic (etc) and use it/recycle it. So here and now I'm going to keep consuming and throwing things away, as is my right."

Paraphrasing, of course. But one only has to scroll up a page or two to hear that being said.

So let future generations either pay the price, or fix the mess. For now, let's just "enjoy life" and keep adding to the problem.

 

[flea.rider]

First flight engine powered 100% by artifical fuel was carried out the other week.


In Heathrow some flights are up to 30% already (current engines only rated for 50% of the fuel being non fossil)

define artificial fuel ? alcohol can be a fuel .. as can veg oil ....

 

[bloodiedathame]

define artificial fuel ? alcohol can be a fuel .. as can veg oil ....

There is an official site run by the UN that goes into detail what the different fuels are created from. Veg oil and ethanol are included.

One of them is derived from biomass, natural gas and coal...

I've not actually been able to find any detail regarding the emissions they each create. That could be worse than standard aviation fuel but I don't know.

 

[Tefal]

define artificial fuel ? alcohol can be a fuel .. as can veg oil ....

Not fossil fuel?


Both of what you've described would be SAF(sustainable aviation fuels) yes.

 

[Tefal]

There is an official site run by the UN that goes into detail what the different fuels are created from. Veg oil and ethanol are included.

One of them is derived from biomass, natural gas and coal...

I've not actually been able to find any detail regarding the emissions they each create. That could be worse than standard aviation fuel but I don't know.

Shell puts it at 20% (and 80% cut in emissions is thier wording)

 

[Tefal]

And in any case, why should we rely on future generation to bail us out?

"In future somebody may be able to extract that buried plastic (etc) and use it/recycle it. So here and now I'm going to keep consuming and throwing things away, as is my right."

Paraphrasing, of course. But one only has to scroll up a page or two to hear that being said.

So let future generations either pay the price, or fix the mess. For now, let's just "enjoy life" and keep adding to the problem.

It's not bailing out though, landfills are not an impending disaster they're just a potential source of future profit.


Round where I live we have lots of land fills as we have old industrial excavations all over the place, so they've used rubbish to fill them in and they are now either housing estates or forests/parks.

Land fills are only really a problem if you plan to dig into them

Specifically about your "today's garbage is tomorrow's mine" comment, which was both flippant and wrong.

Landfill sites are simply biohazards and will remain so for potentially thousands of years. Even after that, nobody is going to come along and mine for resources in landfill,

You've gone from saying it's impossible and never going to happen now though so a step in the right direction I suppose.

 

[Tefal]

That we may choose to extract some minerals from landfill is neither here nor there. If that's your justification for not doing anything to reduce waste, it's a very poor one.

Food waste is the largest single constituent of landfill, but plastic is a very close second. (Between them food waste and plastic account for almost 50% of landfill by volume).

What happens to all that plastic? Well, the evidence is that it carries on being plastic, albeit it turns into smaller and smaller particles. Particles which can enter the food chain and cause as-yet unknown damage to life on Earth, including to us. Some plastics may never decompose, as far as we know.

But also, plastic that is buried is a problem because it means we need to produce new plastic to replace it. Because we are unable to wean ourselves off dependence on plastic.

None of that is changed by some small-scale mineral deposits in yonks old landfill. Remember as another chap said, modern landfill tries to separate electronics out so that it doesn't get buried in the first place.

Our landfills filled with plastic are best described as a "biohazard" as I said earlier - not as a "resource" as you claim. All that plastic waste isn't valuable, won't be re-used, and is 100% just a ticking ecological time-bomb. We already catch fish filled with microplastics, and there's already evidence that it's building up inside our bodies.

Being so flippant about waste (esp landfill) because "it stays on Earth, it doesn't go anywhere" is totally missing the point. We're changing inert compounds (or at least, relatively safe if they remain deep underground) into really destructive compounds and dangerous waste.

So stop eating fish?

Why are you justifying destroying the planets ecosystem and natural wildlife? For your pleasure?

Also we really aren't making dangerous compounds unless we start living a hell of a lot longer.


You're gonna die before microplastics cause you an issue.


Buy seriously just think you're sat there saying a concentrated source of buried hydrocarbons (even toxic ones) is worthless and not valuable.

 

[Tefal]

Ah thanks for that. I was scratching my head just the other day about synthetic fuels and oils etc. Will have a read.

I did a bit of work with Rolls Royce and their Accel (all-electric air speed attempt a few years ago).

Awesome would love to hear more about that if you're able.


I'd guess after this flight our company magazine will have more about the SAF fuels (feels like saying PIN number) as we're partnered with shell and rr for them I'll post a pic if they do/I'm alowed

 

[bloodiedathame]

Awesome would love to hear more about that if you're able.


I'd guess after this flight our company magazine will have more about the SAF fuels (feels like saying PIN number) as we're partnered with shell and rr for them I'll post a pic if they do/I'm alowed

Unfortunately not of the engineering side of things but I worked on a large amount of video content for them, documenting the inception and build. It was a nice project to work on since my dad is an engineer (and used to work for RR), and I'm mechanically minded too. I think covid hit right as they were planning to do the test and I've not seen anything about it since.

I noticed that Shell were a supplier of one of the SAFs, do you know if it's 80% total reduction or 80% on the production side? And do these stats get independently verified?

 

[Tefal]

Unfortunately not of the engineering side of things but I worked on a large amount of video content for them, documenting the inception and build. It was a nice project to work on since my dad is an engineer (and used to work for RR), and I'm mechanically minded too. I think covid hit right as they were planning to do the test and I've not seen anything about it since.

I noticed that Shell were a supplier of one of the SAFs, do you know if it's 80% total reduction or 80% on the production side? And do these stats get independently verified?

I don't know I've only seen the headline 80% reduction no specifics.

I'm pretty sure the accel plane has been up and flying but don't know bout speed tests. It looks gorgeous though

 

[bloodiedathame]

define artificial fuel ? alcohol can be a fuel .. as can veg oil ....

A bit more info, had left the tab open.

https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/GFAAF/Pages/Conversion-processes.aspx

 

[Angilion]

Some clever person needs to invent a way to harness the full power of the sun.

Someone has. It's purely imaginary, though. We're nowhere near being able to build one and maybe never will be. Even if we stripmined the entire solar system and destroyed everything in it, I think we'd still be short of materials.

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

We have many times more energy than we could ever need just being beamed to us constantly.

We should be putting almost every penny we have and every genius available into the development of electricity storage.

No. We should not be gambling the entire future of human civilisation on something that isn't anywhere near being viable now and might not be viable ever let alone anywhere near soon enough. We need solutions that work now. We can't afford to gamble everything on solutions that might possibly perhaps maybe work after implausibly large amounts of resources have been poured into them for decades or centuries.

Also, obviously, if we converted a non-trivial amount of the energy reaching Earth from the sun into electricity we'd also be significantly changing the entire global environment and climate and weather systems. In ways that we couldn't accurately predict. But it's a moot point because we couldn't possibly come anywhere close to being able to manufacture and maintain that amount of solar power equipment anyway. Nor would we need to - a far smaller amount would be enough if it was spread out over the world and connected by HVDC lines and all the countries of the world shared electricity freely. Which is impossible for different reasons.

I think basing everything on any single electricity generation method is a flawed approach. But especially so for one that doesn't and can't work that way.

 

[Tefal]

Also, obviously, if we converted a non-trivial amount of the energy reaching Earth from the sun into electricity we'd also be significantly changing the entire global environment and climate and weather systems. In ways that we couldn't accurately predict.

Not strictly true all captured energy would be released back as heat, maybe a little more captured than normally reflected if the panels where places on areas that were previously very reflective or we shipped electricity long distances and concentrated it's use.


But generally it would still end up as heat same as before and within the same general area

 

[bloodiedathame]

Not strictly true all captured energy would be released back as heat, maybe a little more captured than normally reflected if the panels where places on areas that were previously very reflective or we shipped electricity long distances and concentrated it's use.


But generally it would still end up as heat same as before and within the same general area

And sites across the globe rather than one large area as @Angilion also suggested helps reduce the risk to each environment. And diversifying energy sources as mentioned is also a very important factor.