Climate Policy

[weakwarrior]

Even though the total amount is 5 times the amount we need, at some point winds might not be able to deliver moisture where it's supposed to be.

Sorry, I don't follow. What's moisture have to do with wind energy? Or do you mean we will slow down the winds enough to have an environmental impact? Are you sure we can have that much of an effect?

The same goes for (affordable) geothermal energy. It's only sustainable as long as you don't ask too much from it, or things will start to cool down.

I'm pretty tired and the letters on the wikipedia page of geothermal energy have begun dancing, so this may be a dumb question. Like above, are you sure we have enough of an (any) impact on how much heat is released for this to become a problem?

Edit: Looks like Kandrathe may have made the same point I did (more clearly) while I was typing. Yes, I'm that tired. It took me more than 5 minutes to write a 1/2 dozen sentences.

[weakwarrior]

Do you have a link for this. I was under the impression that oceans were getting more acidic.

Me too. And wikipedia too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification.

[--Pete]

Hi,

. . . or things will start to cool down.

If you're going to consider it from the 'big picture' viewpoint, then consider this:

We live on one planet in one solar system of one galaxy. To call it an insignificant ball of dust is to overstate its importance.

We're one species on a planet where every species that has ever existed is extinct. The exceptions are statistically insignificant. In the grand scheme of things, our extinction is meaningless.

If the universe is really a closed system, then everything is cooling down. We're doomed to heat death whether we drive a Prius or a Hummer. We might as well have some fun on our slide to hell.

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

Sorry, I don't follow. What's moisture have to do with wind energy?

It's a typical Zenda statement. It hides a world of crap behind a grain of truth.

Simply put: to extract energy from wind slows the wind down. To extract all the energy from wind stops the wind. Wind carries moisture from the oceans to the land. No wind, no moisture, worldwide desert.

Exaggeration and extreme extrapolation. Like I said, a typical troll statement

--Pete

[eppie]

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cf...d=13982870

large scale solar energy harvesting closer than ever.

[weakwarrior]

Basically, like "forty days and forty nights" in the Bible, it means a long but indefinite time.

Not sure. Numbers Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6 imply that fourty days is an exact time.

[Zenda]

Or do you mean we will slow down the winds enough to have an environmental impact? Are you sure we can have that much of an effect?

Not sure, ofcourse. But if we take away 20% of all wind power, wouldn't it be logical to assume that wind speeds may slow down 20%? Maybe less in some places, and more in other places. Remember, we got into this global warming mess because we thought for a long time that our little bit of extra CO2 wouldn't make any difference.

I'm pretty tired and the letters on the wikipedia page of geothermal energy have begun dancing, so this may be a dumb question. Like above, are you sure we have enough of an (any) impact on how much heat is released for this to become a problem?

It's all in the link given by Jester.

"If you stick a straw down a 15-km hole in the earth, you’ll find it’s nice and hot there, easily hot enough to boil water. So, you could stick two straws down, and pump cold water down one straw and suck from the other. You’ll be sucking up steam, and you can run a power station. Limit-less power? No. After a while, your sucking of heat out of the rock will have reduced the temperature of the rock. You weren’t sucking sustainably. You now have a long wait before the rock at the tip of your straws warms up again."

If we are talking about sustainable geothermal energy, it would provide for 2 kWh per person per day if *all* available land was used. That's assuming we can drill 15 km deep holes at no cost, and have 100% efficient methods to convert steam into electricity. Higher outputs are possible, but the source will become non-sustainable.

[eppie]

This item (sorry it is in dutch, maybe you can use some translation program....the reason I add this link is only to show I am not making things up:) )

Anyway, this guy is telling the things I have also been saying on this site recently.
The fact that large scale use of solar energy in houses is not an if, but a when. In a few years electricity made this way will be cheaper than the electricity from conventional power plants.

He also predicts that the crystalline silicon cells will likely not be used anymore in 2030, because of the availability of much cheaper alternatives. The only thing now is some political goodwill (not like the dutch government that decides to subsidize people that want to put solar cells on their roof and then take months and months more (so after summer has finished) to tell people if their request for subsidy is granted).


In the years (I wrote a literature report about organic solar cells chemistry for my graduatian in 1999) I have always wondered why people always were so negative about the costs of solar power electricity. Every new technique or consumer gadget start off costing a lot (what did you pay for your first 2.1 Mpix digital camera??) but in just 10 years you pay a quarter for something that is 10 times as good. So of course the same will happen will photovoltaic cells.

[Zenda]

Let me see...

1. The sun is responsible for solar (of coarse), wind, biomass and fossil fuels (ancient plants). Wind and hydro are ways to capture solar power that evaporates water changing the density of the air (affected by gravity). Shallow geothermal (not the hot springs) is due to solar radiative heating of the ground.<>
   
2. The moon (and to a lesser extent the sun) is responsible for tidal energy, which is pretty predictable.<>
   
3. Deep geothermal is virtually limitless because it is generated by the gravitational action of the sun and moon on the earth as well as radioactive decay.<>
   
4. Other chemical reactions releasing energy <>
   
5. And, then, there is nuclear power, both fission and fusion.<>
   [st]And, who knows, maybe there is something else we haven't discovered yet.

Does this list of alternatives proof that geothermal and wind energy are sustainable?

[Zenda]

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cf...d=13982870

large scale solar energy harvesting closer than ever.

This DESERTEC project is also discussed in Without the hot air, if you are interested.

[Zenda]

I'm researching the power possibilities of sterling engines with solar

It's a very interesting concept, yes, to use solar thermal techniques like that. For example, solar chimney power plants may not have a very high energy output, but they can also be used as greenhouses for food production (if water is available).

http://www.stirlingengines.org.uk/sun/sola6.html

[Jester]

If the universe is really a closed system, then everything is cooling down. We're doomed to heat death whether we drive a Prius or a Hummer. We might as well have some fun on our slide to hell.

I think we are at a crucial juncture. We have become powerful enough to either eradicate ourselves quickly, or to spread to other planets and solar systems. Either of these things could happen in mere centuries, an insignificant speck cosmically, but probably a tipping point in our history.

If we screw up earth while it's still our one and only planet, our species' survival time might be measured in decades or centuries. If we hold off until we are at least dispersed over a few habitable biospheres, our species's survival time might be measured in millions or even billions of years.

That's a pretty big choice to make, and if you're fatalistic about the difference, that seems pretty much like nihilism, or at least some kind of suicidal hedonism. Maybe this particular crisis is not the one that will bring us down. But if we don't start thinking about our species' survival in the biggest of pictures, we're almost certainly going to end up as another cosmic statistic, a chemical pattern that failed to keep replicating.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

. . . to spread to other planets and solar systems.

And that might make us the first. (EDIT): Also, check this out.

. . . if you're fatalistic about the difference, that seems pretty much like nihilism, . . .

Oh, *I* care. I doubt if the universe does.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

And that might make us the first. (EDIT): Also, check this out.
Oh, *I* care. I doubt if the universe does.

Again, in the strange mode of role reversal between Jester and I... I am optimistic. :) I was reading some climate articles in Science Daily today. A couple caught my eye...

Global Warming: Our Best Guess Is Likely Wrong And, what is of concern is that if the model is bunk, then we might get hotter than the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or colder. "The conclusion, Dickens said, is that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of the heating during the PETM. "Some feedback loop or other processes that aren't accounted for in these models -- the same ones used by the IPCC for current best estimates of 21st Century warming -- caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM." But that actually makes me a bit optimistic, because it somewhat verifies my suspicion that no one really "knows" what it going on. So, our climate change coin toss may be back to a two sided coin, or perhaps its just a choice between hotter and hotter than hell.

Then again, on the same page is a story titled, "Carbon Emissions Linked To Global Warming In Simple Linear Relationship" so what the heck can you believe? :)

Then there was the story, "Global Warming Predictions Are Overestimated, Suggests Study On Black Carbon" which found that the climate models underestimated the amount of black carbon sequestered in different soils.

And finally, a NASA funded study of "Ozone, Nitrogen Change The Way Rising Carbon Dioxide Affects Earth's Water" Which suggests either plants use less water making an environment more productive for other plants, or depending on conditions might create more run off resulting in floods, erosion, and water contamination.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Global Warming: Our Best Guess Is Likely Wrong

So, based on a "best guess" (which is probably wrong) we should make major political and lifestyle choices. :lol:

Reminds me of the joke; Anyone can make a decision with complete information. A good manager can make a decision on partial information. But it takes a politician to make a decision in total ignorance.

--Pete

[Jester]

So, based on a "best guess" (which is probably wrong) we should make major political and lifestyle choices. :lol:

And major political and lifestyle choices have traditionally been based on what? A magic 8 ball? However painfully imperfect our knowledge and understanding are now, they certainly weren't any better at any previous juncture.

-Jester

[eppie]

Again, in the strange mode of role reversal between Jester and I... I am optimistic. :) I was reading some climate articles in Science Daily today. A couple caught my eye...

Global Warming: Our Best Guess Is Likely Wrong

I don't think this article is of very much use. It is basically an amount of words thrown together without saying anything (abstract of scientific articles in popular scientific magazines can be very useless).
Anyway, what about methane, or one of the other greenhouse gasses? Rising temperatures will lead to eg melting of the permafrost in Siberia leading to large methane release.
And more important, I can't understand what makes you positive when reading this. The authors don't state CO2 is not responsible for warming, they state that something else might kick in (which also isn't a very new though buy the way). Instead of positive you should get more alarmed.

Then there was the story, "Global Warming Predictions Are Overestimated, Suggests Study On Black Carbon" which found that the climate models underestimated the amount of black carbon sequestered in different soils.

This is about a model for predicting the temperatures reached. So how warm will it be in 50 years? 2.6 degrees warmer or 1.3 or maybe even 4.4? It doesn't talk about our CO2 responsability.
Anyway interesting, I hadn't heard about this before. I would have never expect there to be so much black carbon formed when burning organic material. Of course the fact that most of the organic material will be converted in water and CO2 on timescales depending on the life duration (and soil conditions during rotting) of said species is nothing strange.

And finally, a NASA funded study of "Ozone, Nitrogen Change The Way Rising Carbon Dioxide Affects Earth's Water" Which suggests either plants use less water making an environment more productive for other plants, or depending on conditions might create more run off resulting in floods, erosion, and water contamination.

I wonder how big this effect is compared to the increased run-off after bruning down an area of forest.;)

[kandrathe]

I don't think this article is of very much use. It is basically an amount of words thrown together without saying anything (abstract of scientific articles in popular scientific magazines can be very useless). Anyway, what about methane, or one of the other greenhouse gases?

I thought it was useful. It might disprove the completeness of the current GHG global warming model. This helps the creators of the model and the IPCC to go back and figure out what they are missing. And, as I said, if they are missing some things, then those things might moderate warming making less or accentuate warming making it more. But it casts doubt on the accuracy of the model, just the same.

Rising temperatures will lead to melting of the permafrost in Siberia leading to large methane release.

Yes, but increased growing season and more moderate temperatures in Siberia may result in an explosion of plant growth in Siberia and Canada offsetting any GHG's released. I haven't heard of any serious land speculation going on yet on the beach front property north of Churchill.

And more important, I can't understand what makes you positive when reading this. The authors don't state CO2 is not responsible for warming, they state that something else might kick in (which also isn't a very new thought buy the way). Instead of positive you should get more alarmed.

Not so much alarmed, as uncertain. Global warming is not a belief system. And, as a skeptic of the certainty espoused by adherents and alarmists, I don't consider myself a heretic.

I consider myself more of an old fashioned earth conscious individual, like Henry David Thoreau. "If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!"

This is about a model for predicting the temperatures reached. So how warm will it be in 50 years? 2.6 degrees warmer or 1.3 or maybe even 4.4? It doesn't talk about our CO2 responsibility. Anyway interesting, I hadn't heard about this before. I would have never expect there to be so much black carbon formed when burning organic material. Of course the fact that most of the organic material will be converted in water and CO2 on timescales depending on the life duration (and soil conditions during rotting) of said species is nothing strange.

Also, black carbon is formed during decomposition, only part of the biomass is converted leaving a more substantial portion of carbon sequestered than was originally modeled. And, the article stated the carbon would remain in the soil for much longer than they first thought (hundreds of years).

I wonder how big this effect is compared to the increased run-off after burning down an area of forest.;)

There was another article I read about how preventing natural forest fires ultimately contributes to global warming. But, perhaps a better way would be for humans to aggressively manage certain agricultural forest lands growing and cutting as much timber as is possible to sequester the carbon in houses, barns, fences, and buildings. But, we should be diligent in caring for our wooden things to prevent them from decay, releasing their CO2 back into the atmosphere.

[kandrathe]

And major political and lifestyle choices have traditionally been based on what? A magic 8 ball? However painfully imperfect our knowledge and understanding are now, they certainly weren't any better at any previous juncture.

Raum Emanuel says, “You never want to let a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Make political hay while the sun shines.

But, wait. You have frequently been skeptical of my cynicism with "progressives" and their agenda. Here is a recent clip of Hillary Clinton explaining the "opportunity" of the current crisis in Brussels. So, what she says is the current economic crisis will result in political action on climate change and energy security, or is she thankful for the massive drop in worldwide GDP that will result in less CO2 dumped into the atmosphere.

When I hear my government speak like this I wonder if they believe we are all merely sheep. Here is Al Gore's commenting on the Obama administration's activities. I wonder what the new world governance is?

[--Pete]

Hi,

And major political and lifestyle choices have traditionally been based on what? A magic 8 ball? However painfully imperfect our knowledge and understanding are now, they certainly weren't any better at any previous juncture.

I have often said that I'd rather be ignorant than misinformed; I'm intelligent enough to know when I don't know and need to look it up, but if I think I know and I'm wrong there is nothing I can do.

In the past, there was no "magic 8 ball" to predict the future, so people making decisions had to go on what they knew, what they felt, what they expected. Most of them, aware of their ignorance and humbled by their limitations proceeded slowly and cautiously, adopting the minimal measures and only when the need for those measures was truly apparent.

Now we have the "magic 8 ball" -- the computer. By developing models that predict what they want to predict, 'scientists' can sanctify their prejudices by running them through the sacrament of 'computer model'. The outcomes are theories that are taken to be infallible because they are ex cathedra -- emitted from the college of the infallible machine and sanctified by the papacy of pseudo science. The followers of that religion can then preach their gospel of imminent doom. By serving their beliefs as facts, they lead those that are ignorant to become misinformed. Instead of taking reasonable measures at a moderate pace in acknowledgment of their ignorance, the followers of the doom preachers propose extreme measures at a panicked pace from the arrogance of their misinformation.

We would be better served, indeed, if they actually used a magic 8 ball.

--Pete