Comments by "Old Scientist" (@OldScientist) on "Pulling energy out of the sky - People Fixing the World, BBC World Service" video.

  1. Everything we do releases carbon dioxide, so the Carbon Cult want to control everything. There will be global starvation if fossil fuels are eliminated. At risk in coming decades will be half of the world’s 8.5 billion to 10 billion people who are fed by crops grown with fertilizers derived from fossil fuels. Getting to Net Zero by 2050 would cost $9.2 trillion a year globally (McKinsey). That's not going to be good value for money. That's nearly one-tenth of global GDP. That money would be better spent on a myriad of things including educating the fifth of humanity who are illiterate and represent a 7% annual loss to the world's economy. Any country that attempts it will be indebted or impoverished. Example: For the UK to reach net zero by electrification of its transport fleet and heating system, it will require a tripling (as a minimum) of its current electrical generation capacity among other things. It will mean increasing wind power generation from 75TWh (in 2020) to 665TWh (in 2050 - these are UK National Grid figures). That's around 100,000 giant wind turbines. And by the time you get to 2050, the 4,000 wind turbines you needed to install in 2025 would have reached the end of their working lives and will need to be buried in landfill, and replaced with another 4,000. It's all impossible and absurd. The cabling and additional structures to connect all this together will essentially require the UK consuming huge amounts of copper and other rare metals for the next 25 years. 1.5 billion tonnes of concrete 42 million tonnes of steel (which is going to need 27 million tonnes of coking coal) 1.9 million tonnes of copper 1.3 million tonnes of zinc 184,000 tonnes of manganese 122,000 tonnes of chromium 56,000 tonnes of nickel 54,000 tonnes of other critical minerals. No doubt all of these materials will be ethically sourced using low carbon processes. Nuclear power would require less than ½ of these resources and Coal power around ¹/10th. The cost will be unaffordable and the skilled manpower levels unattainable. And that is just to eliminate the 1% of the global CO2 emissions that the UK is responsible for. So times that by 100 for the Earth. 10,000 child slaves in the cobalt mines of the Congo not enough for you? Make it a million. Imagine all the human suffering and environmental damage done from all that resource extraction! It's pointless anyway. In just 8 years (prior to 2021) China emitted more CO2 than Britain did since the start of Industrial Revolution that began over 220 years ago! And China plans to vastly increase its coal fired generating capacity. An electric vehicle requires 6 times the mineral input compared to a conventional one, and the carbon cost is greater until you reach 80,000 miles. Production of all of these minerals has been mastered by China: a totalitarian communist regime that thinks nothing of the mass murder of its own citizens, imagine how much it cares about the rest of us. And why are we embarking on this great net zero crusade? For what? So someone can virtue signal by driving around in a Tesla. Maddeningly, there is no climate crisis. The Earth was warmer in the recent and distant past.
    2