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Local Rebel
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0 posted 2012-10-31 11:18 PM



He said New York would be under water in 2050.

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moonbeam
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1 posted 2012-11-02 06:53 AM


Is that a joke? lol Or are you suggesting that the idiot is right about climate change?
Local Rebel
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2 posted 2012-11-02 08:47 AM


The statistical models were obviously too conservative and underestimated the impact rate of climate change.
Grinch
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Whoville
3 posted 2012-11-02 07:33 PM



One swallow does not a summer make.


Local Rebel
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4 posted 2012-11-02 07:59 PM


If you think this is one swallow you aren't paying attention.  Let's start with the name of the storm....

SANDY.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_records#Number_of_tropical_storms_and_hurricanes_per_season

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5 posted 2012-11-02 08:32 PM


Yes, Gore was a genius.....concerning how to make millions on his own fabrications.
Grinch
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Whoville
6 posted 2012-11-02 09:16 PM



What's in a name?

Sandy is the 19th named storm this season, there were 19 last year and 19 the year before.

So far this season there's been 10 storms large enough to be classed as hurricanes, three more than last year but two less than the year before.

There's  only been one major hurricane this season though – that's three less than last year and four less than the year before.

As I said – one swallow...


Local Rebel
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7 posted 2012-11-02 09:20 PM


Trend
Grinch
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Whoville
8 posted 2012-11-02 09:51 PM



Proverb

one swallow does not a summer make

1.One instance of an event (such as the arrival of a single bird) does not necessarily indicate a trend


http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/one_swallow_does_not_a_summer_make


Local Rebel
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9 posted 2012-11-02 11:53 PM


quote:

Sandy is the 19th named storm this season, there were 19 last year and 19 the year before.



Trend.  The data is right in front of you.  Proverbs are not science.

Huan Yi
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Waukegan
10 posted 2012-11-03 01:31 AM


.


And the full moon?


.

Essorant
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11 posted 2012-11-03 02:19 AM


A Global Warming a day
Keeps the Ice Age away.

Huan Yi
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Waukegan
12 posted 2012-11-03 02:40 AM


.


And produces less deaths.

.

Local Rebel
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13 posted 2012-11-03 05:55 AM


quote:

One of the major unanswered questions about climate change is whether hurricanes have become more frequent and stronger as the world has warmed. Until now, there hasn’t been enough evidence to settle the question, but a report published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may have changed all that. Using an entirely new method of tallying hurricane power and frequency, a team of scientists say that hurricanes are, indeed, more of a danger when ocean temperatures are higher. “In particular, we estimate that Katrina-magnitude events have been twice as frequent in warm years compared with cold years," the report says.

Until now, the problem with such calculations is that until satellites came along in the 1970’s, nobody knew for sure how many hurricanes formed during a given year. That’s because some hurricanes never strike land, and unless a ship or a plane happened upon one of these storms, nobody might even know it had ever existed, and certainly not how strong it was

The record from the '70's onward is much more complete — but since hurricane numbers wax and wane based on a natural cycle, that’s not long enough to see if there’s a warming-related pattern on top of ordinary fluctuations. Ocean temperatures fluctuate according to natural cycles as well, although studies have shown an overall increase in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures, a trend that has been linked to manmade global warming.

But Alex Grinsted of the University of Copenhagen and his colleagues came at the problem in an entirely different way. They looked not at hurricanes themselves, but at the storm surges tropical storms drive before them as they come ashore, and surges have been reliably measured by devices known as tide gauges all the way back to the 1920's.

“Using surges as an indicator,” Grinsted said in an interview, “we see an increase in all magnitudes of storms when ocean temperatures are warmer.” As ocean temperatures have risen inexorably higher in the general warming of the planet due to human greenhouse-gas emissions, the scientists concluded, hurricane numbers have moved upward as well. The implication: they’ll keep increasing along with global temperatures unless emissions are cut significantly.

There’s one obvious caveat about the new results: not every hurricane creates a storm surge, since they don’t always hit land. And not every storm surge is caused by a hurricane. “The storm surge index,” Grinsted said, “is sensitive to strong winter storms as well.” And it’s quite possible, he said, that the intensity of a given storm surge could be made greater or less by the angle at which a hurricane hits land.

Surges aren’t, in short, a perfect stand-in for hurricanes, but Grinsted said that they’re pretty good. In cases where they could do so, the team has lined up hurricane data with surge data, and, he said, “there are clear correlations. So while our paper might not explain everything, it is still useful."

In fact, Grinsted said, storm surges are more relevant to peoples’ lives than hurricanes. “Surges are one of the most damaging aspects of hurricanes,” and that’s going to become increasingly true as sea level continues to rise over the rest of this century. “If we want to talk about threat and risk, then this could be a more important measure,” Grinsted said.



http://www.climatecentral.org/news/new-evidence-that-hurricanes-are-tied-to-global-warming-15114

Dated 10/15, just prior to Sandy.

Local Rebel
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14 posted 2012-11-03 06:04 AM


quote:

The upper-air flow over the Atlantic Ocean was temporarily jammed by a powerful area of high pressure near Greenland and a storm system in the Central Atlantic, leaving the storm no escape route away from the U.S. Such patterns are known as “blocking” events, and they have occurred with increasing regularity and intensity in recent years. Blocking patterns have been linked to several noteworthy extreme weather events, such as the deadly 2010 Russian heat wave and Pakistan floods, the 2003 European heat wave, and the March heat wave of 2012 in the U.S.

In this case, the blocking pattern, occurred at precisely the wrong time — when a hurricane was moving out of the Caribbean.

Weather Channel hurricane expert Bryan Norcross wrote about this on Oct. 26. “The freak part is that a hurricane happens to be in the right place in the world to get sucked into this doubled-back channel of air and pulled inland from the coast,” he said. “And the double-freak part is that the upper-level wind, instead of weakening the storm and simply absorbing the moisture — which would be annoying enough — is merging with the tropical system to create a monstrous hybrid vortex. A combination of a hurricane and a nor’easter.”

Some, though not all, scientists think the more frequent blocking events may be related to the loss of Arctic sea ice, which is one of the most visible consequences of manmade global warming. The 2012 sea ice melt season, which ended one month ago, was extreme, with sea ice extent, volume, and other measures all hitting record lows. The loss of sea ice opens large expanses of open water, which then absorbs more of the incoming solar energy and adds heat and moisture to the atmosphere, thereby helping to alter weather patterns. Exactly how sub-Arctic weather patterns are changing as a result, however, is a subject of active research.
[/quote]
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/how-global-warming-made-hurricane-sandy-worse-15190
moonbeam
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15 posted 2012-11-03 07:09 AM


I'm not as cynical as Mike about Gore's motives, but I do think he jumped on a bandwagon - and he isn't alone in doing that.

We can argue till the sun burns out about climate change.  Of course there's climate change going on(as there always has been), and yes, the consensus seems to be that human activities are possibly speeding up, or even slightly altering, a process that might naturally have occurred.

The worry for me is the growing evidence that greedy and unscrupulous people and companies all over the world are exacerbating the fear of change for their own ends, thereby potentially (no definitely) diverting valuable resources and time into schemes and ideas that do little more than make them more wealthy.

There's FAR too much on emphasis on the supply side - producing more or producing differently is only really a solution if there is a seismic change in technological knowhow and very quickly, or if we can somehow very quickly start to tap into off-planet resources.

Neither of these seem likely, so we really need to be focussing on the demand side.  

To people like Al Gore and all those guys who are hoping to make a killing out of global warming this is very unpalatable.  Basically it means less growth, smaller populations, less consumption, less greed, and a simpler way of life for a smaller number of people.

Local Rebel
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16 posted 2012-11-03 12:47 PM


quote:

There's FAR too much on emphasis on the supply side - producing more or producing differently is only really a solution if there is a seismic change in technological knowhow and very quickly, or if we can somehow very quickly start to tap into off-planet resources.



The emphasis is on the supply side because that's where the problem is.  Consumers are stuck with the products that are available to them, unless you're expecting ordinary clerks, farmers, medical service providers, car salesmen, et al, to become backyard engineers and start providing their own solutions.

The solutions already exist, are already efficacious, and already being deployed.  If Al Gore wasn't investing in them can you imagine the howls from climate change deniers that he didn't believe in the solutions or he'd be investing in them.

On the other hand, if Al Gore's motive is profit then there is a far easier path for him to follow, the Koch brothers would be more then happy to admit him to their ranks so the hydrocarbon billionaires can merely continue to profit from the monopoly they hold over consumers.

But, since Al Gore puts all of the profits from his alternative energy investments back into solving the global climate change problem, personal profit is ostensibly the last thing on old idiot Al's mind.

And, it's rather a good thing that we can't get resources from other planets because that would exacerbate and accelerate the problem.

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17 posted 2012-11-03 07:13 PM


"But, since Al Gore puts all of the profits from his alternative energy investments back into solving the global climate change problem, personal profit is ostensibly the last thing on old idiot Al's mind.".....LR

Al Gore also talks to investors. Since 2007, the former Vice President in Bill Clinton's administration has been preaching the benefits of putting your money where his mouth is: Alternative energy.

But if Al Gore has any message for investors today, it might very well be this: "Stay the hell away from alternative energy!"
Gore's company files a quarterly report with the SEC that tells a different story about the 30 stocks in its portfolio. His company's public investments in wind, solar, biomass and other alternative energy to combat climate change are practically non-existent.

But his portfolio is top-heavy in high-tech, medical instruments, and even more pedestrian investments in companies such as Amazon (AMZN), eBay (EBAY), Colgate Palmolive (CL), Nielsen (NLSN), Strayer University (STRA), and Qualcomm (QCOM).

He is also big in China, with stakes in a big Chinese travel agency, CTrip, and China's largest medical equipment manufacturer, Mindray Medical.

And if you want a piece of the natural gas pipeline game -- heavily dependent on the environmentally suspect fracking -- you can find that in Gore's portfolio as well with Quanta Services (PWR) http://www.thestreet.com/story/11727215/1/al-gore-walks-away-from-green-energy.html

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18 posted 2012-11-04 06:57 AM


Reb

Sorry to be flippant about Gore earlier.  I'm cynical about him just as I am about practically all politicians where climate change and resources are concerned.  But I admit, at least he tries to engage in the only way he knows how, unlike the Palins and Romneys of this world who are actively trying to destroy it.

Fact is though many well meaning politicians and the majority of ignorant people are driven mainly by the fear whipped up by radical greeens and corporate vested interests.  The "investment" in renewables is very largely tragically mismanaged, and panic has allowed profits to be made out of technologies that should never have been developed in the way they have.

By far the most important facet though of this debacle is the way in which the emphasis has been on the supply side rather than tackling demand side expectations decades ago.  I'm short on time now, could go on for pages This is a good article though:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2012/1102/Obama-Romney-avoid-hard-truths-about-energy

"Neither candidate wants to inform Americans that we need to get used to living with less energy, or that we must adapt to being less mobile. Neither Mr. Obama nor Mr. Romney is willing to help the national conversation evolve from “How can we grow energy production?” toward “How can we shrink our appetites to fit what we can afford and what nature can sustainably supply?”"

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19 posted 2012-11-04 03:06 PM


http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html


"This whole wind energy mess just further illustrates how the American people have been played by their elected officials who bought into the "global warming" hysteria that spawned the push for wind energy in the first place. And now that the renewable energy tax subsidies are gradually coming to an end in some places, the true financial and economic viability, or lack of wind energy, is on display for the world to see.

"It is all about the tax subsidies," writes Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail. "The blades churn until the money runs out. If an honest history is written about the turn of the 21st century, it will include a large, harsh chapter on how fears about global warming were overplayed for profit by corporations."

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034234_wind_turbines_abandoned.html#ixzz2BHp55p25

Grinch
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20 posted 2012-11-04 03:36 PM


LR,

I agree trends are important and shouldn’t be ignored but the devil is in the detail, for instance if you look at the trend of major hurricanes per year since 1950 the number has decreased.

In the face of that particular trend the argument that global warming increases the frequency of major hurricanes runs into a bit of a problem. That problem gets a whole lot worse when you look at the data in more detail. As each year passes scientists are a getting better at detecting tropical storms in remote parts of the oceans. They’re definitely more proficient than they were in 1950, so the increasing trend in tropical storm detection and non-landfall typhoons is expected but the expected increase in major hurricanes is conspicuous by its absence.

Does global warming exist? Undoubtedly.

Is that increase in global temperature likely to cause changes in weather patterns? Almost certainly.

Do the historical accumulated cyclone energy figures and tropical storm frequency figures show a clear increase in hurricane frequency and strength? Unfortunately not.

That’s not to say that they won’t later on down the line, it’s just that at this point there’s not enough comparative data to show a clear trend. That’s why those articles you posted aren’t full of scientists all confirming what Gore predicted, most of them have seen the first swallow but have no conclusive evidence that there’s a flock of them around the corner.

Moonbeam,

While reducing energy demand makes sense on paper I seriously doubt it’s going to happen, if you look back through history man has simply replaced one outdated or depleted energy source with another and I can’t see the future being any different.

As oil runs out the cost will increase but the demand won’t diminish, alternative energy sources will become more viable and people, scrupulous and not so scrupulous, will rush to fill the demand and their pockets. The really clever ones will already have a toehold in the market and really clever governments will be doing everything they can to encourage them to do so.

Local Rebel
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21 posted 2012-11-04 06:01 PM


Grinch, not quite sure that I agree with your data, because I don't know what you're looking at.. But if you look at this table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_records#Seasonal_activity
And the bar graph I posted before, it runs counter to what you're suggesting.  Sure, there are outliers along the table, but the trend is obvious.  The existence of outliers and randomness are important considerations in trying to evaluate any particular sample.  Statistics don't give us ANY information about an individual sample, only about probabilities.  Any credible statistician or in this particular case, climatolagist, has to say there are no fingerprints of global warming at the crime scene called Sandy, but the trend line clearly indicates Sandy is exactly the kind of storm that is probable.

Moon, I completely disagree with any notion that any part of the solution calls for a downgrade in quality of life in regards to the conveniences we've become used to circa mid 20th century onward.  I think there are certainly expectations of higher efficiency, but not reductions in kind.

Now, as an engineer, I've been completely opposed to solar cells for 30 years, but not to solar power.  In fact, we have enough solar power in a small patch of desert here in the US to power our entire country, if it's done properly.  Solar cells are one of the least efficient methods, both in production and in deployment, because they only utilize the photons coming from the sun, and ignore the suns natural thermal radiation.  Solar thermal is the way to go.

Winds challenge is a grid that's a hundred years out of date.  Because of the nature of capitalism, politics, and physics, it isn't surprising at all that early stutter steps have occurred.  I'd point you to Tucker and Studebaker though.

This is why the impetus is on governments and not markets to blaze these trails.  Now we're looking at private sector space missions because of the early support for technological development .

Besides that, fossil fuels ARE going to run out, climate change be damned.

Huan Yi
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Waukegan
22 posted 2012-11-04 09:12 PM


.


China, India and the rest of the developing world could care less. . .
There was a NASA official who was pilloried for asking a simple
question; who are we to determine the planet’s optimum environment?
There are to be nine billion people on the planet and not because of the native West.
They will need to be fed.  Does a warmer or colder world facilitate that?
I for one am all for global warming since apartment management denies me
the opportunity to raise the temperature in my rooms having installed a thermostat
which sets a max that means my wearing layers of clothes beginning in late September..
Also, as I understand it, increasing livestock passing gas is one of the primary contributors
to the problem.


.

Local Rebel
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23 posted 2012-11-05 12:00 PM


quote:

The people of East Africa once again face a devastating drought this year: Crops wither and fail from Kenya to Ethiopia, livestock drop dead and famine spreads. Although, historically, such droughts are not uncommon in this region, their frequency seems to have increased in recent years, raising prices for staple foods, such as maize.

This scenario may simply be a taste of a world undergoing climate change in the mid–21st century, according to a new report from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a Washington, D.C.–based organization seeking an end to hunger and poverty through appropriate local, national and international agricultural policies. By IFPRI's estimate, 25 million more children will be malnourished in 2050 due to the impact of climate change on global agriculture.

"Higher temperatures and changes in precipitation result in pressure on yields from important crops in much of the world," says IFPRI agricultural economist Gerald Nelson, an author of the report, "Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security: Impacts and Costs of Adaptation to 2050". "Biological impacts on crop yields work through the economic system resulting in reduced production, higher crop and meat prices, and a reduction in cereal consumption. This reduction means reduced calorie intake and increased childhood malnutrition."

Nelson and his colleagues, working with funding from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, estimated global agricultural impacts by pairing IFPRI's own economic models for crop yields with climate models for precipitation and temperature from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. Assuming a world that is slow to adapt to climate change and focused on regional self-reliance, the researchers found that children in the developing world—which are the countries expected to provide the bulk of population growth to nine billion or more by mid-century—will be hardest hit.

"It's not economic development that matters in this case, it's the location on the surface of the Earth," Nelson notes. Without better crop varieties or other agricultural technology improvements, irrigated wheat yields, for example, will fall at least 20 percent by 2050 as a result of global warming, and south Asia as well as parts of sub-Saharan Africa will face the worst effects.

Even without climate change, population pressure alone will cause a spike in food prices without intervention, according to IFPRI's economic model. For example, without climate change, wheat prices might rise from $113 per metric ton in 2000 to $158 per metric ton in 2050—an increase of 39 percent. Similarly, rice prices would soar by 62 percent, maize by 63 percent. But factoring in climate change will boost wheat prices by at least 170 percent and rice by a minimum of 113 percent; the cost of maize will be at least 148 percent higher than at the turn of the century by mid-century.

Nor will the developed world go unscathed. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science in August noted that corn, soybean and cotton yields in the U.S. will drop precipitously because of additional days where the temperature is above 30 degrees Celsius.

Part of the problem is that the benefits of better plant growth, thanks to higher carbon dioxide concentrations (plants use CO2 for photosynthesis) are more than offset by the impact of higher temperatures and differing precipitation. "If you grow a plant in a bell jar in a lab and increase the CO2 inside, the plants will perform better. [But] will those results translate into farmer's fields? Evidence that we've been getting from farmer's fields suggests perhaps not," Nelson says. And that means fewer calories per person would be available in 2050.

To prevent this agricultural crisis, Nelson estimates, would require an investment of at least $7 billion per year in the most affected countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America for increased agricultural research into, for example, drought-resistant crop varieties. "Crop and livestock productivity–enhancing research, including biotechnology, will be essential to help overcome stresses due to climate change," the report's authors wrote.

These areas will also need expanded rural road and irrigation infrastructure as well as improvements to the efficiency of that irrigation.


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-will-climate-change-impact-world-food-supplies

Huan Yi
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Waukegan
24 posted 2012-11-05 08:46 PM


.


So doesn't this all translate
into the developing world having too many
babies?


.

Local Rebel
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25 posted 2012-11-05 09:10 PM


No.
moonbeam
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26 posted 2012-11-06 05:37 AM


No Huan - it translates into the developing world having too many babies and the developed world having too many babies and the developed world being irresponsibly greedy, wasteful and materialistic.
Essorant
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27 posted 2012-11-06 08:38 AM


I think we should complain about the birthrate and population of automobiles that take up a lot more space than humans, especially when they are moving, and cause a lot more destruction to life and to the enviroment than most other means of getting around, before we complain about the number of humans themselves.  Too many automobiles are what are taking up too much space in our cities, not too many humans.  Likewise all the streets, parking lots, garages, car-dealerships, etc we need to try to accomodate this mechanical population alongside our own.  The human world will be able to accomodate the humans better when we no longer corner ourselves into accomodating these machines so much, when we discover a much less world-overwhelming form of transportation.
 

moonbeam
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28 posted 2012-11-06 09:16 AM


I agree Ess.  

But WHY are there so many automobiles?

moonbeam
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29 posted 2012-11-06 09:16 AM


quote:
  Moonbeam,

While reducing energy demand makes sense on paper I seriously doubt it’s going to happen, if you look back through history man has simply replaced one outdated or depleted energy source with another and I can’t see the future being any different.

As oil runs out the cost will increase but the demand won’t diminish, alternative energy sources will become more viable and people, scrupulous and not so scrupulous, will rush to fill the demand and their pockets. The really clever ones will already have a toehold in the market and really clever governments will be doing everything they can to encourage them to do so.

You are of course right Grinch.  But each replacement energy source has been bigger and more sapping of earth’s resources than the one before, and has been required to support a larger and larger demand.  Resources are finite, unchecked demand isn’t.  Illogical humanity, like any other plague or pest, won’t voluntarily decrease its demand – we will presumably eat and destroy ourselves back to a sustainable level.  Logical humanity will need to intervene to ration resources compulsorily.  That effectively means a global body tasked with putting in place a “fair” system of resource distribution at an individual level.  You’ve read it in SciFi, our technology is reaching the point where individual actions can be closely monitored and some form of energy use rationing is, in some scenarios, inevitable imv.

Alternative energy sources may become “more viable” but unless more resources are focussed on developing and enhancing a nuclear future instead of tinkering at the edges by wasting subsidy on “heath robinson” renewables, we won’t even dent the surface of the next century’s energy demands.

quote:
  Moon, I completely disagree with any notion that any part of the solution calls for a downgrade in quality of life in regards to the conveniences we've become used to circa mid 20th century onward.  I think there are certainly expectations of higher efficiency, but not reductions in kind.

Now, as an engineer, I've been completely opposed to solar cells for 30 years, but not to solar power.  In fact, we have enough solar power in a small patch of desert here in the US to power our entire country, if it's done properly.  Solar cells are one of the least efficient methods, both in production and in deployment, because they only utilize the photons coming from the sun, and ignore the suns natural thermal radiation.  Solar thermal is the way to go.

Winds challenge is a grid that's a hundred years out of date.  Because of the nature of capitalism, politics, and physics, it isn't surprising at all that early stutter steps have occurred.  I'd point you to Tucker and Studebaker though.

This is why the impetus is on governments and not markets to blaze these trails.  Now we're looking at private sector space missions because of the early support for technological development .

Besides that, fossil fuels ARE going to run out, climate change be damned.


Being American Reb, of course you disagree with any sort of downgrading of lifestyle.  Your nation is the most profligate on earth.  But whether you like it or not, it’s coming,

I don’t understand your problem with PV.  PV may ignore thermal radiation, but panels are becoming more efficient, and more importantly much cheaper.  If you can produce electricity for next to nothing use just part of a natural resource, what does it matter if you don’t use the remainder.  Would you object to a small water turbine in a large river, purely because it doesn’t use the whole river?

Anyway, how will solar thermal help?  Doesn't it just produce hot water?

The grid is the main problem in the US maybe, there are many other problems with wind in smaller countries.  Intermittency is certainly an issue, but in general wind is probably the best example of the world effectively wasting resources enriching a few individuals for very little gain.  Certainly not enough gain to make any impact on our energy problem.

I agree about governments blazing trails – I agree about the sense of blazing trails into space.  The trails they blazed in relation to renewables were however largely driven by fear and panic, and now we are paying for that mistaken trail blazing.  

Essorant
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30 posted 2012-11-06 09:36 AM


quote:
But WHY are there so many automobiles?


Because our culture is addicted to them and we set things up to increase the addiction instead of overcome it.  Humans don't naturally need automobiles anymore than ants do, but people choose dependency on them and therefore pay a large price for it, giving far too much money and resources to a population of machines; money and resources that could be used a lot better helping provide nourishment and shelter to the poor people in the world.
 

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31 posted 2012-11-06 03:08 PM


Ess

I don’t think “addiction” is the reason any more than it is the reason we consume and buy a lot of other things.  

Humans, by nature, are quite greedy and innately selfish.  If we can have something desirable, whether it is more food than we really need to sustain us, more electronic goods, more land, more clothes, better houses, more vacations, more entertainment, more and better automobiles, we will generally take it or buy it.

So long as politicians and economists continue to pursue the holy grail of eternal economic growth, and so long as such growth is consumer driven, there will more, bigger and better of everything – until we ravage the planet and raw materials run out of course.

Consuming bigger or more automobiles is no different really to dining out more and more frequently and eating more and more food which you don’t really need, or buying your kids more and more gifts.  It’s all part of this ridiculous cycle of consumer driven growth.

So yes, you are right, it is an addiction, an addiction to growth, not merely to automobiles.

Local Rebel
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32 posted 2012-11-06 04:17 PM


PV just substitutes one form of finite resources for other forms of finite resources, which in turn are energy intensive to manufacture, and degrade over time.

Hot water has lots of uses, very powerful uses, like powering steam turbines.  Coal, nuclear, just make hot water.  A parabolic reflector can last a couple of hundred years, and a water pipe can last 50 or more.  It's a simple, elegant, efficacious design.

We have no need to downgrade anything.  My objections to this viewpoint are not American, they are engineering/scientific.  The Luddite viewpoint is as counterproductive as the denial of climate change.

One day we may even have dilithium crystals.

But I'll settle for solar thermal power plants and wireless induction vehicles, and preferably a lot more high- speed trains.

Huan Yi
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33 posted 2012-11-06 05:09 PM


.

http://www.photius.com/rankings/world2050_rank.html


The only reason there any increases
in the developed countries is immigration
from the developing countries.


.

Essorant
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34 posted 2012-11-06 05:35 PM


quote:
Consuming bigger or more automobiles is no different really to dining out more and more frequently and eating more and more food which you don’t really need, or buying your kids more and more gifts.  It’s all part of this ridiculous cycle of consumer driven growth.


But they are quite different Moonbeam.  We smother the landscape with concrete so the metal on wheels can go almost every where; they probably take up  more surface space in the form of traffic, streets and parking lots than almost anything else in a populous city; they pollute; they are the means of hundreds of thousands of deaths every year; everything about them costs too much in enviromental sacrafices, resources and money; they clutter and dirty the surface of the earth; they result in the mindset of try to get everywhere in a big rush because people use them as their main mode of getting around instead of something on the side,  etc.    Automobiles and the culture and conditions that come with them, taken to such an extent as they are today, I believe are one of the most destructive aspects of our human world.  It will be a blessing when we are able to find a technology that can replace them with something far less harmful.
 

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35 posted 2012-11-07 04:58 AM


I agree with everything you say Ess except the part where you say they are quite different.  The passion for motor cars and every bad thing that derives from them is merely one example of a broader malaise imv.  Ok, granted, a very visual and aggressive example, but nonetheless just part of it.
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36 posted 2012-11-07 04:59 AM


"The only reason there any increases
in the developed countries is immigration
from the developing countries."

Kinda misses the point.

moonbeam
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37 posted 2012-11-07 05:15 AM


“PV just substitutes one form of finite resources for other forms of finite resources, which in turn are energy intensive to manufacture, and degrade over time.”

Yes, just like the material used in solar thermal and many other so renewable technologies.  As you probably know, in the PV industry, as in many others, great strides in recycling are being made.  This is not an argument for not using PV in favour of other technologies.  A better argument would be to question the viability vis a vis the prospect of a significant contribution to world energy demands of ALL the new so called renewables technologies.  Are they not just the technologies of the playpen?   Making a few people a LOT of money at the expense of the poor, until something realistic is found?  

“Hot water has lots of uses, very powerful uses, like powering steam turbines.  Coal, nuclear, just make hot water.  A parabolic reflector can last a couple of hundred years, and a water pipe can last 50 or more.  It's a simple, elegant, efficacious design.”

Smoke and mirrors eh Reb!  I didn’t think you were serious about solar thermal as a major contributor to the grid, sorry.  We are talking high pressure steam and LOTS of it, not hot water.   Do you know what the biggest solar thermal plant produces right now?  And how many there are of that size?  Have you worked out how many there would need to be to make a significant dent in base load requirement?  Or what happens at night?

“We have no need to downgrade anything.  My objections to this viewpoint are not American, they are engineering/scientific.  The Luddite viewpoint is as counterproductive as the denial of climate change.”

If it’s “Luddite” and counterproductive to emphasise the need to recycle and to match supply and demand then I’m happy be to be labelled so.  It is however a largely Western and American viewpoint that regards changing a way of life as a step “back”.

“One day we may even have dilithium crystals.”

Heh.  If only!

Local Rebel
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38 posted 2012-11-07 07:53 AM


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

100x100 miles of useless desert in Nevada can power the entire US with solar thermal energy moon.  CSP materials may wear out over time, but they are not 'consumed' like fossil fuels or PV.

If you're talking about "downgrading" lifestyles, that's not merely adopting innovation or becoming more efficient.  It's a denial that we have the capacity to solve the problem.
/pip/Forum6/HTML/001287.html  /pip/Forum6/HTML/001518.html#2

moonbeam
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39 posted 2012-11-07 08:59 AM


I'm talking about a better match of human consumption to available resources.  That means recycling and yes it may mean, for some who are wasteful in their habits, eg Westerners with 3 SUV's and detached heated houses with 10 rooms, "downgrading".  For others, eg Africans in mud huts it may mean an upgrading.  

Production costs of PV have plummeted in the last few years and recycling is gradually making your argument about PV materials being "consumed" redundant.  PV technology is much more elegant (fewer monolithic moving parts), less breakdown prone, less maintenance greedy than solar steam where there are still real problems to be solved in terms of the technical issues of turbine size and energy storage.  Neither technology is however imv a "solution", but both are a LOT better than windmills.

Essorant
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40 posted 2012-11-07 11:22 AM


All energy sources should be used in a compromise between them to get the most efficient and safest use of them all, without becoming too dependent on and overdoing any of them individually. Where one has a weakness, another should be used to compensate for it.   The sources of energy need to be put together as pieces of a puzzle that when put together well can last for the longest term possible, not segregated into pieces where we only use one piece and therefore become too subject to the weaknesses of it, the harm in using too much of it, running out of it, etc.
Local Rebel
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41 posted 2012-11-07 04:19 PM


The price drop in PV's is temporary, a gimmick perpetrated by China moon.  This is a technology that's dependent on semiconductors, which means mining operations and dangerous manufacturing chemicals.  Recycling is actually less likely as the price of panel production continues to plunge.  Still, they are better than fossil fuels, but not as efficacious as CSP long- term, which will be as cost effective as conventional coal-fired / natural gas plants by 2050, or sooner.

I expect innovations to continue in both technologies, and there are applications for PV's, but long-term, the renewability of PV's is as problematic as fossil fuels.   The shorter, greener path is CSP.  The price drop in PVs has scared private investors, like google, out of the CSP market, which, again underscores the need for public/private investment until we can grandfather out conventional and nuclear production.

But at least you now know what CSP is, and what it's capable of.  There is no need to downgrade anyone's lifestyle.  That's the good news!

The bad news is, it's already too late.  Sandy's are the new normal for generations to come.  Further innovations will be required to deal with that, and solve food shortages.

This is another conversation though.  I really don't feel like discussing genetic modification.

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42 posted 2012-11-07 04:37 PM


Hi Reb, I think you are perhaps a little out of touch with advancements in PV recycling.  Nearly all the materials can now be successfully and commercially recovered.  I think the Germans (as usual) are leading in this.

Like I say,from what I've read CSP is a very long way from making a serious dent in global enery requirements.  In any event the discussion is only partly about electricity and energy generation - lifestyle changes are likely to be needed whatever, because as you say, it's too late. We may not agree on exactly why it's too late! but we sure as heck aren't going to be able to carry on as we are.

Local Rebel
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43 posted 2012-11-07 05:04 PM


Nearly all, is how much money a gambler recovers in a casino.  And, unless governments force recycling, it ain't gonna happen.

CSP requires billions of initial investment.  But that's pretty minimal when you consider a land mass the size of Lake Mead can produce ALL the electrical requirements for an energy hog like the US.  And, we can do it all with electricity.  Don't need anything else!

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44 posted 2012-11-07 05:18 PM


It just did happen, lol:

http://pvrecycling.com/

and while I'm about it - on solar thermal:


http://papundits.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/the-problem-with-solar-thermal-power/

and on windmills:

To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero. Despite the regressive subsidy (pushing pensioners into fuel poverty while improving the wine cellars of grand estates), despite tearing rural communities apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents, clogging motorways, polluting lakes in Inner Mongolia with the toxic and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is in the average turbine — despite all this, the total energy generated each day by wind has yet to reach half a per cent worldwide.  
If wind power was going to work, it would have done so by now…
In a wish to be seen as modern, (politicians) will embrace all manner of fashionable causes. When this sets in — groupthink grips political parties, and the media therefore decide there is no debate — the gravest of errors can take root. The subsidising of useless wind turbines was born of a deep intellectual error, one incubated by failure to challenge conventional wisdom.
It is precisely this consensus-worshipping, heretic-hunting environment where the greatest errors can be made. There are some 3,500 wind turbines in Britain, with hundreds more under construction. It would be a shame for them all to be dismantled. The biggest one should remain, like a crane on an abandoned quay, for future generations to marvel at. They will never be an efficient way to generate power. But there can be no better monument to the folly of mankind.
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/wind-power-madness-little-pow er-huge-bills-scarred-landscape/

Local Rebel
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45 posted 2012-11-07 06:11 PM


Your
PA pundit is laughably misinformed moon.  the ability to store solar energy to operate when the sun goes down is the hallmark of CSP plants.  TonyfromOz is about as sourceable as using one of these pip threads.

quote:

The good news on this horizon comes from recent developments in thermosolar concentrated solar power (CSP). We can now expect effective CSP capacity factors to be increased to the 75% range with technologies that are current and cost effective. In 2010, Italian utility Enel brought on line a 5 MW thermosolar CSP demonstration facility that integrates the two most promising 24/7 baseloading technologies: Molten salt energy storage (MSES) and combined-cycle natural gas power generation. The Enel Archimede plant can operate on stored solar thermal energy alone for several hours. When the thermal reservoir is exhausted a natural gas combined-cycle generator kicks in as needed to meet the relatively light late night and early morning power demand. The result is a reliable baseload 24/7 power plant with around-the-clock generation capability.

Molten Salt Energy Storage

Molten salt energy storage (MSES) is often described as ‘solar salt’ batteries. Unlike lithium-ion chemistry-based batteries, MSES is an incredibly efficient and cost-effective thermal energy storage system. Particularly well suited for thermosolar CSP power plants, MSES retains over 90% of captured heat for up to 24 hours, allowing generation of electricity around the clock in an elegant, economical, and environmentally benign manner.

Several stand-alone MSES CSP power plants have been designed and built recently by the Sener Group. These facilities go a long way to solving the solar capacity problem. Sener’s first MSES facility, built for the ACS Group/ Cobra outside of Grenada, Spain in 2009, is the 50 MW Andasol-1 CSP plant. Andasol-1 uses MSES with 7.5 hours of effective heat storage. This plant has a capacity factor rating of 41%, an impressive increase from the thermosolar CSP industry median of 18%. However, while this allows continued power generation for hours after sunset it still doesn’t get us to the Holy Grail of baseload 24/7 solar power generation.

That goal for a stand-alone thermosolar CSP plant will be achieved near Seville at Sener’s Gemasolar power plant; a baseload 24/7 19 MW CSP tower plant with 15 hours of molten salt energy storage. Gemasolar is scheduled to open in mid-2011 with a remarkable capacity factor of 75%, coming close to coal, nuclear, and natural gas capacities.

http://greeneconomypost.com/concentrated-solar-power-answer-intermittency-concerns-13949.htm

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46 posted 2012-11-08 02:31 PM


I didn't know about this form of storage.  If as good as set out here it could indeed make a difference.  I still think though that you have an engineer's love of all things unecessarily mechanical!  Mirrors, steam, turbines and windings seem so much more complicated and prone to mechanical failure and maintenance problems, than just erecting PV arrays and cleaning them once in a while.


Local Rebel
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Southern Abstentia
47 posted 2012-11-08 04:35 PM


I understand your perspective moon.  I just don't feel you're including what it takes to get that panel manufactured, transported, erected, decommissioned, and recycled.  Its' moving parts are invisible.  
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