[ShepherdsDog]

$1:

Your article about the CO2 emitted in the production of renewables has some validity, doc. However, it is exaggerated.

This is rich...a lying, fraudulent piece of shit like you telling someone that they've posted something that's been exaggerated. More feigned indignation from the fraudulent fuck guaranteed. Own up to your lies already you cowardly cute.

[bootlegga]

peck420 peck420:

bootlegga,

To be completely fair, finding a 100% clean energy source will change civilisation as we know it as well.

No matter what, civilisation will change.

True, but each of those changes head in opposite directions.

One, running out of oil/gas/coal in the near term without a suitable replacement, will likely lead to lots of negative effects (conflict, starvation, etc) on mankind.

The other (finding a 100% clean energy source) would more likely lead to a brighter future with positive benefits for mankind.

[EyeBrock]

Clean, cheap and renewable energy, world peace and money for nothing, chicks for free.

Noble aims Boots!

[DrCaleb]

bootlegga bootlegga:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Here's a good article on the Myth of Renewable Energy.

http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/colu ... ble-energy

That article reads like a red herring - renewable energy is a joke because it uses non-renewable resources (like metal) to be used.

Wow, what a news flash! Good thing they enlightened me... [sarcasm off]

Seriously, just about everything mankind currently uses requires the use of non-renewable resources such as metal or rare earth elements. That is not, and never was the point of renewable energy plans - the point is to ensure we have energy to run our civilization after stuff like oil and coal runs out. And trust me, if oil runs out in the next decade or two, civilization as we know it will end.

It's not a red herring. It's pointing out a serious flaw in the current thinking that 100% 'renewable' is achievable. For example, you can't mine rare earth elements needed in windpower or solar without using hydrocarbons. There are no hybrid or electric only scrapers to remove overburden in ore mines!

I know the article is in a Nuclear Power biased publication, but I've always championed nuclear because it is able to be made avaliable 24/7 and can be increased on demand. You can't run steel mills in developing countries on solar and wind power, and that is exactly what developing countries need most of all is a steel industry.

The article is saying to use hydrocarbons where they are needed and can't be replaced by anything else, but to compensate the rest of our energy demands with 100% renewables is not possible just yet.

bootlegga bootlegga:

The thing about non-renewable energy is that someday it will run out, while renewable energy is available forever (assuming maintenance is provided and the earth doesn't explode) once you build the infrastructure. Someone with a solar panel may not get power from it today, but odds are they will tomorrow, or the next day or someday after that. Same goes for wind power.

The biggest problem with most renewable energy sources is that they cannot efficiently power transportation, which makes up somewhere between a quarter and a third of our energy needs. Still, if we put our minds to it, we'll find a way to make them work for us.

[/quote]

That's kind of like saying 'later today we'll run out of daylight' though isn't it? The definition of "non-renewable" is that they will eventually be used up. But todays' society is an 'on demand' one. When we turn on the light switch, we expect the lights to come on. We don't expect to wait for a couple days till the sun is bright enough to recharge the batteries. Especially this time of year in this hemisphere.

We will eventually find ways to substitute our energy needs with ones with better long term propects. The unfortunate part is that those concerend about the environment refuse to let the best substitutes be used in the mean time because of an irrational fear of the unknown. And governments also refuse to require all safety measures that are possible in order that the safety of the public and environment are held to the highest standard.

[DrCaleb]

PluggyRug PluggyRug:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

[
You said 'car battery'. As in, Lead Acid. But the Nickel Metal Hydride of a Hybrid makes little difference, except for the ability of it to deliver current. The hybrid batteries would deliver more current for longer than a lead acid, but "a light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long".

House current is 240/120 volt at 100 amp. Your average gas furnace draws 30 amps just powering up the fan. A stove can draw 50 amps at 240 volts.

The batteries in a hybrid would still not be able to fully power a modern home for any significant length of time. And definitely not 7 homes.

If you find the article, I would like to read it. I could use the laugh.

True.

Even if LiPo batteries are used (higher current delivery) the result would be similar. Also using an inverter to step up a low voltage DC supply to 240v AC is inneficient due to the frequency output needing to be fixed at 60Hz.

(ask me how I know)

Which is why aircraft use 300Hz systems. (ask me how I know)

[Zipperfish]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Seriously, just about everything mankind currently uses requires the use of non-renewable resources such as metal or rare earth elements. That is not, and never was the point of renewable energy plans - the point is to ensure we have energy to run our civilization after stuff like oil and coal runs out. And trust me, if oil runs out in the next decade or two, civilization as we know it will end.

It's not a red herring. It's pointing out a serious flaw in the current thinking that 100% 'renewable' is achievable. For example, you can't mine rare earth elements needed in windpower or solar without using hydrocarbons. There are no hybrid or electric only scrapers to remove overburden in ore mines!

I know the article is in a Nuclear Power biased publication, but I've always championed nuclear because it is able to be made avaliable 24/7 and can be increased on demand. You can't run steel mills in developing countries on solar and wind power, and that is exactly what developing countries need most of all is a steel industry.

The article is saying to use hydrocarbons where they are needed and can't be replaced by anything else, but to compensate the rest of our energy demands with 100% renewables is not possible just yet.[/quote]

I agree with that. But I don't see how the fact that we can't use renewables for 100% of out energy should be reason not to invest. Tke geothermal. Rather low grade energy, really. You're exploiting a tempeature difference between here and some depth below the earth. Why not use it to heat buildings? Then you'd be saving the high-grade stuff--electricity--for high-grade uses.

While some renewables are intermittent, they can work well wiht hydro. So, for instacne, you slow down the hydro turbines while the wind is blowing. They complement each other. And they are not necessarily intermittent. Solar power is constant in sapce, and maybe you can even extract ebergy from those high energy radiation before it hits the ozone layer.

[EyeBrock]

I agree Zip. I'm all for alternate energy sources. My point in my own little world is that in Ontario we are subsidising Samsung to research and provide very expensive electricity on the back of my hydro bill.

That said, government incentives such as tax breaks etc I can agree with. Giving Ontario tax payer’s money to Samsung to develop a marketable product at a profit to Samsung just seems wrong.

If these alternate sources are to succeed, they need to be economically viable and fiscally self-sustainable. I pay enough taxes already without helping the shareholders of Samsung Heavy Industries.

[Batsy]

From Asian Correspondent.com:

For those who haven’t seen it yet (and given the poor response from mainstream media so far, you could be forgiven for this), another tranche of emails has been released from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University (in eastern England).

This is the second release of correspondence from climate scientists that came to be known the first time around as Climategate.

Climategate was undoubtedly the biggest single environment story of 2009, so you would think that the release of more emails would rate somewhere as being worth reporting this time around.

But that’s where you’d be wrong. Once again, Fairfax and the ABC have remained silent so far, leaving only The Australian newspaper to report on the issue.

And once again, the emails reveal a culture of highlighting results that conform to “the cause” and excluding dispassionate science. One can only sit back and admire the patience and timing of this – released just before the next big climate change conference in Durban. It is sure to create some awkward meetings between some scientists who have name-checked each other.

Since it appears that is largely up to blogs to lead the way in sharing the news, here follows a selection of interesting snippets released as part of Climategate II:

What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multi-decadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably.

Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary [...]

I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.

It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.

Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [...]

The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out.

I agree w/ Susan [Solomon] that we should try to put more in the bullet about “Subsequent evidence” [...] Need to convince readers that there really has been an increase in knowledge – more evidence. What is it?

In my [IPCC-TAR] review [...] I crit[i]cized [...] the Mann hockey[s]tick [...] My review was classified “unsignificant” even I inquired several times. Now the internationally well known newspaper SPIEGEL got the information about these early statements because I expressed my opinion in several talks, mainly in Germany, in 2002 and 2003. I just refused to give an exclusive interview to SPIEGEL because I will not cause damage for climate science.

I find myself in the strange position of being very skeptical of the quality of all present reconstructions, yet sounding like a pro greenhouse zealot here!

I too don’t see why the schemes should be symmetrical. The temperature ones certainly will not as we’re choosing the periods to show warming.

Kevin, Seems that this potential Nature paper may be worth citing, if it does say that GW is having an effect on TC activity.

Getting people we know and trust [into IPCC] is vital – hence my comment about the tornadoes group.

My most immediate concern is to whether to leave this statement ["probably the warmest of the last millennium"] in or whether I should remove it in the anticipation that by the time of the 4th Assessment Report we’ll have withdrawn this statement

I can’t overstate the HUGE amount of political interest in the project as a message that the Government can give on climate change to help them tell their story. They want the story to be a very strong one and don’t want to be made to look foolish.

We don’t really want the bull and optimistic stuff that Michael has written [...] We’ll have to cut out some of his stuff.
[...] the mostvaluable thing to do is to tell the story about abrupt change as vividly as possible

In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public relations problem with the media

But it will be very difficult to make the MWP (Medieval Warming Period) go away in Greenland.

A growing body of evidence clearly shows [2008] that hydroclimatic variability during the putative MWP…was more regionally extreme (mainly in terms of the frequency and duration of megadroughts) than anything we have seen in the 20th century, except perhaps for the Sahel. So in certain ways the MCA period may have been more climatically extreme than in modern times.

The results for 400 ppm stabilization look odd in many cases [...] As it stands we’ll have to delete the results from the paper if it is to be published.

Although I agree that GHGs are important in the 19th/20th century (especially since the 1970s), if the weighting of solar forcing was stronger in the models, surely this would diminish the significance of GHGs. [...] it seems to me that by weighting the solar irradiance more strongly in the models, then much of the 19th to mid 20th century warming can be explained from the sun alone.

would you agree that there is no convincing evidence for kilimanjaro glacier melt being due to recent warming (let alone man-made warming)?

[tropical glaciers] There is a small problem though with their retreat. They have retreated a lot in the last 20 years yet the MSU2LT data would suggest that temperatures haven’t increased at these levels.

There shouldn’t be someone else at UEA with different views [from "recent extreme weather is due to global warming"] – at least not a climatologist.

I am not convinced that the “truth” is always worth reaching if it is at the cost of damaged personal relationships

Also there is much published evidence for Europe (and France in particular) of increasing net primary productivity in natural and managed woodlands that may be associated either with nitrogen or increasing CO2 or both.

Read more of these emails: http://asiancorrespo...ia-fails-again/

[bootlegga]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

bootlegga bootlegga:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Here's a good article on the Myth of Renewable Energy.

http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/colu ... ble-energy

That article reads like a red herring - renewable energy is a joke because it uses non-renewable resources (like metal) to be used.

Wow, what a news flash! Good thing they enlightened me... [sarcasm off]

Seriously, just about everything mankind currently uses requires the use of non-renewable resources such as metal or rare earth elements. That is not, and never was the point of renewable energy plans - the point is to ensure we have energy to run our civilization after stuff like oil and coal runs out. And trust me, if oil runs out in the next decade or two, civilization as we know it will end.

It's not a red herring. It's pointing out a serious flaw in the current thinking that 100% 'renewable' is achievable. For example, you can't mine rare earth elements needed in windpower or solar without using hydrocarbons. There are no hybrid or electric only scrapers to remove overburden in ore mines!

I know the article is in a Nuclear Power biased publication, but I've always championed nuclear because it is able to be made avaliable 24/7 and can be increased on demand. You can't run steel mills in developing countries on solar and wind power, and that is exactly what developing countries need most of all is a steel industry.

The article is saying to use hydrocarbons where they are needed and can't be replaced by anything else, but to compensate the rest of our energy demands with 100% renewables is not possible just yet.

bootlegga bootlegga:

The thing about non-renewable energy is that someday it will run out, while renewable energy is available forever (assuming maintenance is provided and the earth doesn't explode) once you build the infrastructure. Someone with a solar panel may not get power from it today, but odds are they will tomorrow, or the next day or someday after that. Same goes for wind power.

The biggest problem with most renewable energy sources is that they cannot efficiently power transportation, which makes up somewhere between a quarter and a third of our energy needs. Still, if we put our minds to it, we'll find a way to make them work for us.

That's kind of like saying 'later today we'll run out of daylight' though isn't it? The definition of "non-renewable" is that they will eventually be used up. But todays' society is an 'on demand' one. When we turn on the light switch, we expect the lights to come on. We don't expect to wait for a couple days till the sun is bright enough to recharge the batteries. Especially this time of year in this hemisphere.

We will eventually find ways to substitute our energy needs with ones with better long term propects. The unfortunate part is that those concerend about the environment refuse to let the best substitutes be used in the mean time because of an irrational fear of the unknown. And governments also refuse to require all safety measures that are possible in order that the safety of the public and environment are held to the highest standard.

Well, the obvious clean, renewable energy that is 100% available 24/7 is fusion power - we just haven't figured out how to create a stable, self-sustaining reaction.

But sources such as wind and solar could be used to power any mills, mines, whatever. The trick is using it to crack hydrogen and then using the hydrogen to power a power plant capable of operating 24/7. They could even be used to power electric/hydrogen fuel cell cars and some transportation (like LRTs, electric buses, etc), but I doubt an electric-powered semi-truck is practical. If companies can build hybrid trains, why can't companies make hybrid ore scrapers?

And while fission power may be on-demand, it is just as effective at powering transportation as solar and wind is, which is to say, not very effective at all (short of the steps I suggested with wind/solar).

Honestly, I don't have a problem with using fission power instead of coal for power, but nuclear's biggest problem is PR - after Three Mile Island and Chernyobl, not very many people are keen on living within 50 kms of a nuke plant.

So 'renewable' energy is really not as ludicrous as this article makes it out to be.

And of course, Zip brought up a good point.

Perhaps if the US (and by extension, the West) invested some of the money they spent invading Iraq/Afghanistan into figuring out fusion, we'd have the problem licked by now. From the mid-90s to the mid-2000s, only $9 billion was spent on R&D research by IEA members, yet several trillion was spent on wars, propping up oil-producing states, and general defence spending. Of course, I'm not suggesting we cut defence spending and funnel it all into fusion research, but $9 billion in a decade from ALL IEA countries is a paltry sum indeed.

Of course, the fusion power lobby is tiny compared to the fossil fuel lobby (or even the fission power lobby), so it gets virtually ignored as a possible power source. And I'm not saying that if we dumped $100 billion in Fusion, we'd have it next year or something, but with better funding levels researchers would solve the problem far quicker and we'd all be better off.

[Zipperfish]

$1:

From Asian Correspondent.com:


But that’s where you’d be wrong. Once again, Fairfax and the ABC have remained silent so far, leaving only The Australian newspaper to report on the issue.

Because even the first time it asn;t that big a deal. It was trumpted as the silver bullet that would kill the AGW movement, but it didn't turn out that way. So it's really hard to get excited about the second batch, adn teh quotes--even taken out of context as these are--don't seem as damaging.

And just out of personal interest Batsy, what's the issue of increasing NPP as a potential function of CO2 concentration?

[andyt]

WFT does John Wayne know about wind power anyway? Plus I thought he was dead.

[DrCaleb]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Bootlegga Bootlegga:

Seriously, just about everything mankind currently uses requires the use of non-renewable resources such as metal or rare earth elements. That is not, and never was the point of renewable energy plans - the point is to ensure we have energy to run our civilization after stuff like oil and coal runs out. And trust me, if oil runs out in the next decade or two, civilization as we know it will end.

It's not a red herring. It's pointing out a serious flaw in the current thinking that 100% 'renewable' is achievable. For example, you can't mine rare earth elements needed in windpower or solar without using hydrocarbons. There are no hybrid or electric only scrapers to remove overburden in ore mines!

I know the article is in a Nuclear Power biased publication, but I've always championed nuclear because it is able to be made avaliable 24/7 and can be increased on demand. You can't run steel mills in developing countries on solar and wind power, and that is exactly what developing countries need most of all is a steel industry.

The article is saying to use hydrocarbons where they are needed and can't be replaced by anything else, but to compensate the rest of our energy demands with 100% renewables is not possible just yet.

I agree with that. But I don't see how the fact that we can't use renewables for 100% of out energy should be reason not to invest. Tke geothermal. Rather low grade energy, really. You're exploiting a tempeature difference between here and some depth below the earth. Why not use it to heat buildings? Then you'd be saving the high-grade stuff--electricity--for high-grade uses.

While some renewables are intermittent, they can work well wiht hydro. So, for instacne, you slow down the hydro turbines while the wind is blowing. They complement each other. And they are not necessarily intermittent. Solar power is constant in sapce, and maybe you can even extract ebergy from those high energy radiation before it hits the ozone layer.

As the Duke points out, wind power isn't cost effective unless subsidized, and then the power it generates is sporatic at best. There are storage means for the power when it does generate efficiently, but those too are inefficient.

From the stats in the article, 250 million pounds per year in develoment + 500 Million pounds a year in subsidies - to me adds up to a few nuclear reactors that could be built and maintained using fewer hydrocarbons than the turbines, and produce much more power over their lifetime. To me, the reason to not invest in wind turbines is because there are currently better uses for our money.

And Geothermal in my area is used for just that. Pump a liquid underground, have it return at comfortable room temperature. It cools in the summer, warms in the winter.

[raydan]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

And Geothermal in my area is used for just that. Pump a liquid underground, have it return at comfortable room temperature. It cools in the summer, warms in the winter.

Yeah right... and when all that underground hot stuff cools down because of this, then the motion of molten iron alloys in the Earth's outer core will stop and the earth's magnetic field will be no more, exposing us to the solar wind that will strip away the ozone layer.....


We're doomed!!!!