Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Rob C on September 22, 2016, 03:29:29 pm
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In view of the apparent temporary - if understandable - death of this section of LuLa, I felt an obligation to try to apply some helpful sparks to its chest by capturing a passing thought. Perhaps I should just have let it go on its way, or perhaps not.
Anyhow.
The media, and some sections of the politically minded populace go on and on about saving the planet, cutting emissions and so forth. Overall, that seems likely to be a good thing, but how it can be achieved appears, to me, to be more and more difficult to understand as we humans grow in number.
If you think about cars, then folks say electricity is the new holy grail, and many traditional car makers are also actively pursuing that route. So, just for a moment, imagine they have managed to convert all of us into drivers of electric cars. Pollution problem solved, then?
Not quite: how are we going to make enough electricity to charge up all of those batteries that will, we imagine, power us into that great, clean new future?
There are already massive electricity shortages around the world; several poorer countries have regular outages; many of their people don't even have electricity for normal, taken-for-granted domestic use. Britian is risking its existence with more and more nuclear stations, and what gets done there isn't being done in isolation. France (and I think Germany) is even more heavily committed to that source and we seem to be neglecting the 'green' alternatives, such as they are. The little matter of radioactive disposal is pretty much ignored in public debate as is the possibility of terrorist attack on one of these power stations; we prefer to look the other way.
Every day or night, countless millions of drivers are going to be plugging in; it's already obvious to the national grids when the populace decides to make its lunch, switch on its electric blanket and cosy up in front of the mental chasm that's popular television. Will the electricity be there to handle all of that? And if so, will it have to suffer the irony of being conjoured up by diesel turbines, and even smaller, family-sized generators? Will coal make a reappearance, bringing us back all of those lovely brown/yellow smogs we used to enjoy so much? (Anyone remember blowing their nose when they came back home from an adventure out there in the cloak of invisibility?)
Maybe, equally ironically, the change from petrol/diesel cars to electrically powered ones will be the saviour of the oil companies who will now be selling their products overwhelmingly - and more simply and directly with fewer middlemen - to the electricity companies instead of directly to the public! Yeah, the North Sea lives again; Free Scotland will become a reality and Nicola will be made a saint.
So everything will be fine. And clean.
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Hi Rob, Unfortunately, the misinformation put forth by ignoramuses in "The China Syndrome" has scared other ignoramuses poopless about nuclear power. Three Mile Island was put forth by the media as a catastrophe when in fact the containment built into the plant worked exactly as designed. Chernobyl was a typical case of Russian dictatorial incompetence. Fukushima was a warning (which should have been unnecessary) that nukes shouldn't be built close to a coast. But all in all nukes are the cleanest source of power in the world. They beat the hell out of bird-blending windmills and bird-frying solar systems.
Eventually, if we can find a really good way to store electrical potential fossil fuel may become a thing of the past, and nuclear generation may supplant it. For now, without fossil fuel civilization would come to a screeching halt practically overnight.
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Yes, this is a big issue. Personally I think the most realistic way to address our energy needs is via diversifying our energy sources. (By "our" I mean the human species.) Put everything on the table and evaluate it. For instance, the way we're currently using nuclear has its problems but there are other methods, and smarter approaches to current methods, that should be cleaner and safer. Even "clean coal," which right now is little more than marketing BS, should be feasible with the proper tech. New types of wind turbines—no spinning blades—should address Russ' (and my) bird-blending concerns. Technological strides in solar panel production and efficiency make solar an increasingly more affordable and effective thing. Oil isn't going anywhere any time soon, so let's be as smart as possible about using it.
There are also "out there" ideas like mining Helium-3 on the Moon and using it in fusion reactors. Because the process would generate no neutrons, the radioactive waste product (mainly protons) would have electric charge and could thus be contained electromagnetically. Neutron containment is an issue with current reactors. This is technologically feasible, and other similarly out there approaches may be as well, but would we be willing & able to commit effort and $$€€££ to actually doing it or any of the others? Dunno.
It seems to me that we humans are really good at responding to big issues and crises when they're in our faces, but utterly crap about any sort of long-range thinking or planning. Or even just living in the absence of immediate crisis. Makes sense as day-to-day survival has been Job One for most of our existence as a species.
-Dave-
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Don't forget that battery technologies are still evolving every 5 to 10 years as new materials, biochemistry and methods of manufacturing advance. This is an area of advancement in tapping into nature I don't think fossil fuels or nuke technology has even come close to. There's also strategies with the use of batteries on the energy consumption side as low impedance circuitry gets smaller and smaller while using even less electricity to operate.
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air
But then there's this...
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602245/why-we-still-dont-have-better-batteries/
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Battery technology doesn't change the fact that you need to charge them: efficiencies there, and in modern electric motors, are already very high.
The problem is trying to get a rational debate: France was doing a good job of keeping its eye on the ball with carbon emissions until Fukushima, then rationality went out the window. Along the way, road and air transport are starting to win back passengers from the clean electric trains, largely due to incompetent management of the railways (cheapest train Lyon-Barcelona was slightly more than twice the cost of flying a couple of months back). It's also coming out that the big push to diesel cars was a scam built on lies about their emissions... VW just happened to be the first to be caught.
Then there is another side: total transport related CO2 emissions are less than meat-production greenhouse emissions, when you add up farting cows, land clearance, transport of crops to feed to the cows to feed to the humans. Encouraging a move to reducing meat consumption was not even on the agenda at COP21... too nasty for the agro-industry lobby groups.
But the really big issue is population. The UN recently lifted its world population projection for 2100 to 12 billion. Almost all of the extra 5 billion are predicted to be in Africa, which is absolutely the worst prepared continent to handle that (part of the reason being awful governments and poor education, which is why the increase will be happening there in the first place...). That implies huge migratory pressures, hence very difficult political situations to discuss rationally pretty much anything, since there will be so much opportunity for populist parties to win votes with incoherent scare tactics.
Of course that depends on lots of long-term assumptions. Thinking about which of those might fail is not a very cheerful prospect either.
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Just stopping eating meat would make a large contribution for a cleaner planet...
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Solar and wind technologies have shown themselves to be unsuited for inclusion in an electrical distribution grid. They can be used to store energy (e.g. hydrogen produced electrolysis of water) but this would still be a minor component and still requires a switch over to hydrogen combustion turbines. Fossil fuels and nuclear are the only technologies currently capable of producing the tremendous amounts of electrical energy that our global civilization currently consumes. When fossil fuels run out we'll be left with various versions of fission fueled steam turbine systems. Unless of course our civilization collapses of its own accord. In that case we'll use wood, dung and peat as our ancestors did. Of course that's gonna make it rough to recharge our DSLRs.
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Solar and wind technologies have shown themselves to be unsuited for inclusion in an electrical distribution grid.
Really? They seem to be integrated into quite a few grids. Do you mean beyond a certain % ? Denmark was vaunting that on several occasions this year it was generating more than 100% of their needs from renewables (and hence exporting the balance into the European interconnected grids).
It seems if you are willing to count solid biofuels, renewables were generating >25% of European electricity in 2014, with a strong upward trend. I'm not going to be so silly as to extrapolate that to say that we can shut down nuclear and coal, of course, but your statement seems a little extreme.
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... Chernobyl was a typical case of Russian dictatorial incompetence...
Thank God, Russ, there are no more neither dictatorships, nor incompetence in today's world ;)
And Rob, yes, great question.
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Thank God, Russ, there are no more neither dictatorships, nor incompetence in today's world ;)
Never gonna happen, Slobodan. You know that probably even better than I know that.
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It can be a self-fulfilling circle.
50% of the Civilian Nuclear Reactors in the United States are 30+ years old. The rest of the reactors are older than 20 years. Our "youngest" civilian power reactors was built in 1996 ( Watts Bar 1 in TN)
(source www.eia.gov). Note that this is slightly inaccurate as the WB1 reactor was the latest one built. There have been older reactors that have been upgraded since then.
Watts Bar 2 reactor should be operational next year which will make WB2 the youngest reactor we have.
So we have older reactors using older technologies. Some people don't want us to build new nuclear reactors because they feel they are hazardous.
So when the older reactors fail , as old stuff often does, the anti-nuclear people point their fingers and proudly state "See? We told you that nuclear reactors are hazardous." Yeah, that 30 year old reactor had a malfunction... its 30 years old.
My opinion: We need to get rid of the older big reactors and start building more smaller reactors with the current technology.
Newer technology should make the newer reactors safer.
Having more smaller reactors should make any accident, or terrorist attack, less hazardous than a similar accident/attack against a big reactor. I also imagine that smaller reactors are easier to secure.
I don't think that nuclear fission is the ultimate energy answer. But I do feel that it is the best interim energy source we have until future technology comes about.
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I agree with you, Otto -- all the way. The main reason our reactors are so old is "The China Syndrome." About twenty years before that stupid movie came out I was involved peripherally in an effort to develop small nukes to power USAF radar sites along the old radar "highline." There was some progress for the more isolated sites, but the movie stopped that idea cold, though the navy went on to power ships with similar reactors. We've now wasted decades of development in what, I agree, is an essential intermediate step toward something like cold fusion. I don't have a big problem with fossil fuels. The whole reaction to them is overwrought BS, mostly cooked up for political reasons. But fossil fuels are relatively inefficient and eventually we're going to run out of them.
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It's probably a simplistic thought, and I suppose the usual terrorists would doom it, but doesn't it seem kinda obvious that harnessing the great wastes of the existing deserts (those without mountains of shifting sands) with solar panels would provide not just heaps of energy but also employment for those in areas with little or none (work)?
With regard to the vegetarian diet: I used to eat plenty of meat, as well as lots of swordfish, all wonderfully prepared by my better-half. Left to my own devices and non-existent culinary skills, I have discovered that using pasta, along with half of a red pepper and a whole Italian green pepper (the latter the longish things, not Weston's muses) chopped into small bits, with gallons of virgin olive oil, half a coffee-spoonful of each of several herbs, had cold on the terrace, is amazingly good to eat. Some Viña Sol, and there you go! I tried adding some tinned mussels but they were horrid: lousy sauce in which they came ruined one such dish. I suppose I should think about buying some, fresh, and doing something with them myself, but then that gets complicated and the price goes up and on and on, and I may as well just go back and eat out again as usual.
There used to be - probably still is - a motorway service station on the route north to Calais, which had one of those massive wind towers with a propeller thing atop. It's the only one I have ever seen; blame, or thank my sheltered life. Always blowing quite hard whenever we were there, and the blades made rather a din, but hardly posed a threat unless to a very slow and short-sighted bird! Of course, should such a blade become detached near a car park...
Having a long row of them out to sea seems quite a good idea to anyone not really into seascape photography... far enough out and you'd not even hear them. Tidal capture is also a great idea - with the huge tides in the seas around the UK we should fare rather well, as would parts of North America.
As so many have asked: if we can get to the Moon...?
Rob
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Two problems with solar panels in the desert: keeping them clean and moving the power to where it's needed.
See also "political stability"...
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Really? They seem to be integrated into quite a few grids. Do you mean beyond a certain % ? Denmark was vaunting that on several occasions this year it was generating more than 100% of their needs from renewables (and hence exporting the balance into the European interconnected grids).
It seems if you are willing to count solid biofuels, renewables were generating >25% of European electricity in 2014, with a strong upward trend. I'm not going to be so silly as to extrapolate that to say that we can shut down nuclear and coal, of course, but your statement seems a little extreme.
I believe Spain built an enormous wind power infrastructure that has been a disaster. In the US where solar and wind were incentivized by the government to make them less unattractive the balancing off of shortfalls from the solar/wind component using gas turbines ended up eclipsing the component coming from the solar/wind component.
A power grid has to be carefully balanced against demand. Wind and solar waits for no man but gas turbines can be brought on line and ramped as needed.
There's a giant solar array in the California desert. It's composed of thousands of mirrors that reflect sunlight onto a tower that boils water to run a turbine. Now, it doesn't get much sunnier than the desert southwest of the US. This facility augments its output using gas turbines when the sun isn't optimum. It's been in service for several years. It has never ben able to match the minimum specification for solar power it was specified to produce. So basically it's mostly a fossil fuel generating facility. But the mirrors do have other functions. They've managed to cook a bunch of birds and divert plane traffic out of fear of blinding the pilots.
My own belief is that wind and solar can be used incrementally for non-grid applications. And possibly in the future we can power individual households in a different way than a power grid. But I think we're decades away from any practical alternative to the power plants we currently use.
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Just a thought here. What if everyone was responsible for the generation of their own electricity? Do you need electricity? Fine. Put solar panels on your roof and install your own wind turbine. Develop your own battery storage system and inverter to power your appliances, or those that really only need 7-12 volt DC could use it directly since there is no longer loss from transmission. If everyone were their own supplier of electricity, I'll bet they would be much more frugal with their consumption. Just a thought.
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Just a thought here. What if everyone was responsible for the generation of their own electricity? Do you need electricity? Fine. Put solar panels on your roof and install your own wind turbine. Develop your own battery storage system and inverter to power your appliances, or those that really only need 7-12 volt DC could use it directly since there is no longer loss from transmission. If everyone were their own supplier of electricity, I'll bet they would be much more frugal with their consumption. Just a thought.
I like that idea. I think it'll take a lot of time to wean people from the conveniences they currently have. Instead of a grid I think a storage method (hydrogen as a fuel) may be the long term answer. It can be generated from a convenient source of power (Niagara Falls, rivers in Quebec, solar, wind, nuclear, etc.) and can be used locally and without pollution (produces water as a waste). Of course it blows up if you're not careful or lucky. But so does gasoline and methane.
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If my next abode is a house—rather than, more likely, a condo or apartment—it'll get solar panels installed on the roof. Depending on the panel & battery tech available then this could cover much of my power needs. I think this is a smarter way of employing the big fusion reactor in the sky than building large arrays of panels on arid/unused land and then beaming the electrojuice elsewhere. Also, the more distributed/decentralized your power supplies are the less catastrophic an attack on "the grid" or huge solar flare or meteorite strike will be.
-Dave-
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Domestic solar is heavily incentivized in France, the electricity company buys back your excess at a quite generous rate. That makes good sense: most of the time the sun is up, I'm not home, but that's when there is the heaviest industrial load. Solar cells on roofs have become very common.
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I don't think it matters what we do in North America and Western Europe from a save-the-planet standpoint. China and India are in their ascension and are not going to be slowed down by such concerns. And there is nothing we westerners can do about it.
That's my big picture thought. Now my little picture thought:
Build more nukes. Make car batteries standard and interchangeable. Nukes make the electricity. Gas stations turn into battery stations. Pull in, remove old battery, insert new battery, off you go. No waiting around to charge up.
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I don't think it matters what we do in North America and Western Europe from a save-the-planet standpoint. China and India are in their ascension and are not going to be slowed down by such concerns. And there is nothing we westerners can do about it.
That's my big picture thought. Now my little picture thought:
Build more nukes. Make car batteries standard and interchangeable. Nukes make the electricity. Gas stations turn into battery stations. Pull in, remove old battery, insert new battery, off you go. No waiting around to charge up.
But those batteries still have to get juiced up somewhere, sometime. It would help the car's immediate problem but not solve the overall situation.
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Overall, that seems likely to be a good thing, but how it can be achieved appears, to me, to be more and more difficult to understand as we humans grow in number.
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In 1800 there were about 1 billion people on the earth. Now there are about 7.3 billion and it takes only about 12 years to add another billion. Within the last 50 years the ocean fish population has decreased by 50% and the middle of the Pacific Ocean has become a plastic soup. Polar ice is melting faster than anyone thought and warming oceans have already killed nearly a quarter of the Great Barrier Reef and many others. About 500 species became extinct in the last 100 years. With few exceptions the populations of remaining species from butterflies to polar bears have been in decline for decades. Ecosystems are changing and it's getting harder to raise crops in many areas.
Most of the 7.3 billion of us don't even know or care about this stuff. Heck, nearly half live on less than $2.50 per day and most of those don't even have access to adequate sanitation. They are worried about basic survival, not how their electricity is produced, assuming they even have electricity. Many in the "rich" half of the population aren't in much better shape. The global median income is only $1225 per year. If you make $32,400 or more you are among the richest 1% of the world's population. By some stretch of the imagination these are the people who may be able to affect the weighty problems we all face. Well, maybe when they are not working to pay for college and picking up kids from soccer practice. Unfortunately every problem we face is far more immediate than saving the ecosystems that support life on our planet. The bills have to be paid this month but the food wars won't happen until I'm long gone, hopefully. My point is that we will never act quickly enough or dramatically enough to reverse the biggest problems faced by humanity, or even dramatically change our course. To do that the whole world would need to work together and that IMO is a fantasy.
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But those batteries still have to get juiced up somewhere, sometime. It would help the car's immediate problem but not solve the overall situation.
That's what the nukes are for. The main reason for the electric cars is to do away with fossil fuel dependency. And when oil is worth nothing, Saudi Arabia is worth nothing.
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Back the initial question, electric cars help reduce pollution everything else being equal because it is a lot easier to clean the exhaust generated by static power plants than it is to clean the exhaust of a car.
Now it is less obvious to figure out to what extend, if at all, electric car result in a more efficient usage of available energy. It is complex because it depends on the mix of energy sources that depends on the location.
I would be interested in any link pointing to a scientific comparison, but my guess is that overall electric cars may not be efficient today in terms of fossil energy usage compated to gasoline cars. I would love to be proven wrong.
Cheers,
Bernard
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That's what the nukes are for. 1. The main reason for the electric cars is to do away with fossil fuel dependency. 2. And when oil is worth nothing, Saudi Arabia is worth nothing.
1. That's kinda obvious, in theory. And taken in isolation without expanding the thinking about consequential changes so induced.
2. Oil will never be worth nothing; for a start, we depend on plastics for an enormous volume of products and machinery still requires lubrication. As for Saudi, that's a political point and also flawed from the point of view of its influence: it's money will not simply evaporate, and money is influence even within a domestic family. And let's not even touch on the religious impact it has worldwide.
Rob C
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The question of whether battery systems will ever have the energy density of a tank of gasoline is interesting enough, but even if it never happens that doesn't mean electric cars won't be useful. Depending on how things turn out, we might lose the ability to drive from New York to Florida in a relatively inexpensive and convenient way, but there was never any guarantee that we could do that forever. When/if there comes a time when the price of a litre of gasoline is $10, say, lots of people will get rid of their cars, since there won't be much point owning something you can't afford to use. But we'll still need to buy groceries and go to the dentist and we've designed our cities (in North America anyway) so that those things are never within easy walking distance. At that point, a limited-range and limited-speed e-car will seem like a godsend and not an substandard substitute, even if you only charge it up once a month. In the long run, we will probably have to change the way we live, and no one ever likes that.
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I would be interested in any link pointing to a scientific comparison, but my guess is that overall electric cars may not be efficient today in terms of fossil energy usage compated to gasoline cars. I would love to be proven wrong.
It obviously depends on where. France is 80+% nuclear, plus another ~8% hydro. very different from Australia which is 100% fossil.
There is also the polemic around the implications of the finite life of the battery packs and the mining of the niobium for the permanent magnets in the motors... I'm not sure anyone has reliable data because of the obvious market economic consequences of battery life estimates for selling the cars, getting government subsidies etc. There is very, very big money on the table.
Getting emissions out of the cities would be a huge deal though, French cities literally stink of diesel fumes now... they smell much worse than petrol vapours to me, and unlike petrol emissions, they have been declared carcinogenic (for what that's worth: I've sat on some of those committees and the decision making is... interesting).
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1. That's kinda obvious, in theory.
It seems this entire discussion is theoretical.
And taken in isolation without expanding the thinking about consequential changes so induced.
Not sure what you mean. But if you're suggesting that there are downsides to nuclear, well, that's kinda obvious too. As the title of the thread suggests, there is no free lunch.
2. Oil will never be worth nothing; for a start, we depend on plastics for an enormous volume of products and machinery still requires lubrication. As for Saudi, that's a political point and also flawed from the point of view of its influence: it's money will not simply evaporate, and money is influence even within a domestic family. And let's not even touch on the religious impact it has worldwide.
Rob C
Of course it won't be worth nothing. Forgive the slight hyperbole. The point being that it will be unlikely that the western world would be dependent on imported oil for the uses you describe, particularly from the core of middle eastern nations that are all inherently unstable; those who enjoy stability receive it from without and not within, solely due to the value of their oil. Those who once enjoyed stability from within, Iraq, 'enjoyed' it at the cost of brutal suppression. Money does not evaporate. But it might as well. Witness the mark following WWI. Plenty of them; no value. Saudi Arabia produces nothing more than oil. The population, while educated, is virtually without a skilled labor force. They are almost entirely dependent on imports. Without oil they have nothing to export except terrorism. So yes, of course this is a political point but there can be no discussion of the future of energy production, global climate change and pollution without a geopolitical discussion. Simply fruitless. And I'm glad to refrain from discussing the impact of religion, but it is also tightly intertwined in the discussion of oil and politics. It cannot be separated. But it can be mitigated when the middle east is no longer the arbiter of western energy resources and economic considerations. Then the discussion can simply be political or religious.
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The question of whether battery systems will ever have the energy density of a tank of gasoline is interesting enough, but even if it never happens that doesn't mean electric cars won't be useful. Depending on how things turn out, we might lose the ability to drive from New York to Florida in a relatively inexpensive and convenient way, but there was never any guarantee that we could do that forever. When/if there comes a time when the price of a litre of gasoline is $10, say, lots of people will get rid of their cars, since there won't be much point owning something you can't afford to use. But we'll still need to buy groceries and go to the dentist and we've designed our cities (in North America anyway) so that those things are never within easy walking distance. At that point, a limited-range and limited-speed e-car will seem like a godsend and not an substandard substitute, even if you only charge it up once a month. In the long run, we will probably have to change the way we live, and no one ever likes that.
Oh let's not constrain ourselves to a bleak future. Let's have faith in the ability of man to overcome technological hurdles. After the governments get tired of subsidizing electric car usage we'll go on using more efficient gasoline engine based designs (such as the hybrid concept with it's small battery regenerative model) for as long as fossil fuels are relatively plentiful. What happens after that depends on what we use for the large scale production of power. If nuclear power becomes the model then it would seem that a hydrogen based combustion engine would be preferable both because of the highly exothermic nature of that combustion process and the clean emissions (water). The engineering challenges involve making hydrogen fuel safe. But I have faith in the wonders of modern engineering. After all if we can have self driving cars then low risk hydrogen engines should be easy.
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It seems this entire discussion is theoretical.
Not sure what you mean. But if you're suggesting that there are downsides to nuclear, well, that's kinda obvious too. As the title of the thread suggests, there is no free lunch.
Of course it won't be worth nothing. Forgive the slight hyperbole. The point being that it will be unlikely that the western world would be dependent on imported oil for the uses you describe, particularly from the core of middle eastern nations that are all inherently unstable; those who enjoy stability receive it from without and not within, solely due to the value of their oil. Those who once enjoyed stability from within, Iraq, 'enjoyed' it at the cost of brutal suppression. Money does not evaporate. But it might as well. 1 Witness the mark following WWI. Plenty of them; no value. Saudi Arabia produces nothing more than oil. The population, while educated, is virtually without a skilled labor force. They are almost entirely dependent on imports. Without oil they have nothing to export except terrorism. So yes, of course this is a political point but there can be no discussion of the future of energy production, global climate change and pollution without a geopolitical discussion. Simply fruitless. And I'm glad to refrain from discussing the impact of religion, but it is also tightly intertwined in the discussion of oil and politics. It cannot be separated. 2 But it can be mitigated when the middle east is no longer the arbiter of western energy resources and economic considerations. Then the discussion can simply be political or religious.
1. That was the German experience. Not gonna happen with Saudi: they have huge investments abroad; I guess they know their own internal score and have hedged their bets accordingly. Of course, that all depends on whom we includes in the word Saudi: do we speak only sheiks or include everybody else too? In some fantasies I could see a flotilla of superyachts rounding the Cape of Agulhas, Suez and most of the Red Sea being, I'd bet, far too dangerous by then.
2. Seems the greatest reserves (oil) of all sit beneath the safe bottoms of the Brazilians. Their women may be cute in that area, but their politics?
Rob
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Energy production should be handled by engineers, not by politicians.
The faith in renewables as the sole and only solution shows how little politicians understand the issues at stake. Without the ability to store energy produced by renewables and use it at will, we will still need to have electricity power plants to supply energy when there is no wind and sun. Power plants cannot be started and stopped at short notice, so they have to run constantly. Thus I am not sure that renewables in their current incarnation have lowered the need to have that dirty old coal power plant running in the background. Politicians never mention that fact. Actually, I am not sure they are even conscious of the problem.
This is why nuclear power plants remain useful as base load electricity plants. The problem is that most of the currently deployed units are based on a technology (PWR, pressurised water reactors) that was chosen in the 1950s to get military grade plutonium and be able to use as a smaller version in submarines. These rely on uranium as combustible and are largely responsible for the bad reputation of nuclear power plants.
Other designs such as molten salt reactors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor), which did not get as much funding at the time, would be better suited for energy production. As an added bonus, most of the problems associated with nuclear energy are greatly reduced in those designs. For instance, they can be designed so that a loss of cooling capacity still results in a safe shutdown. A leak in containment would be much less problematic given the low pressure in the reactor. Nuclear waste is also reduced compared to conventional designs.
So yes, give us more nukes, but make sure to address the issues with the currently used designs.
Cheers,
Fabien
(speaking as someone who lives 20 km away from a nuclear plant of the same type as Fukushima Daiichi, but unlike Unit 3 there, not using MOX as fuel)
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I don't think it matters what we do in North America and Western Europe from a save-the-planet standpoint.
I don't even think in terms of "saving" the planet. We humans have been and are remaking the planet. The amount of forethought and long-term planning we devote to this is what I'm interested in. We could have some degree or other of control over the process, or we could fail to think & plan and let it get away from us. As a human who innately cares about the future of our species, even though I'll leave no descendents of my own, I'd rather we opt for the former.
-Dave-
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I don't even think in terms of "saving" the planet. We humans have been and are remaking the planet. The amount of forethought and long-term planning we devote to this is what I'm interested in. We could have some degree or other of control over the process, or we could fail to think & plan and let it get away from us. As a human who innately cares about the future of our species, even though I'll leave no descendents of my own, I'd rather we opt for the former.
-Dave-
Dave,
Remaking is a bit kind! I think we are destroying it, our own future and that of any projected genes at an alarming rate.
It's as if we have this gigantic, collective blind spot, that it'll all be all right in the end just as long as we don't think about it too much. and actually change anything in our own lives by way of contribution.
Trouble is, this attitude is made easy to accept because we think that nobody else is going to bother to be careful, so why should we? Our little contribution won't make any difference; yet, add them all up...
All in all, I'm glad I lived when I did. Looking forward doesn't make me think I'm going to miss very much. And looking back makes me think it peaked late 50s, plateaued until about the mid 80s and then went into an accelerating decline because of greed, excessive consumerism and a total loss of moral compasses.
In the UK, I think it began with the dumbing down of schools, the political confusing of the practice of sending more capable kids to better schools with elitism which, I think I have seen, has led not to any raising of collective standards, but to a whole swathe of kids whose lack of knowledge about anything beyond teenage interests is truly shocking. But they are not totally to blame: they seem to be children of parents themselves in school during the 60s when the rot set in. In life, I believe that one will never be able to turn sows' ears into silken purses, however politically delightful one might think that fantasy to be.
Rob
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I often feel the same way about the future but probably for vastly different reasons from you, Rob. But I often realize that I'm not the first middle-aged/ older man to feel this way. There have been much darker times even in the lives of our parents and their parents. I think that especially for us baby-boomers (I'm 53, why I'm a baby-boomer I can't explain) we've simply been spoiled rotten, at least here in the US. And I think a lot of our current negative expectations of the future are couched in two things. The first is that we see the future not being as comfortable and relatively care-free as the past and present we have lived in. And that is sort of pathetic because, in my opinion, comfort and security are benefits of a good life but are not the required ingredients for one. The second thing is an ironic hubris coupled with an equally ironic pessimism. We think we have ruined (or are ruining) the global habitat and at the same time reckon that we can fix it, while at the very same time doubting that we can survive and thrive in what we consider one that we fail to fix.
Audubon felt like we had ruined it in 1820.
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I do think we are ruining the global habitat but I don't think we have a prayer of fixing it. I'd think people will almost certainly survive but most other species will not. I'm not sure I'd say people would thrive in such an empoverished world, but then people have a way of adapting to new normals and in a generation no one will miss what they never knew, so perhaps they will indeed thrive and think their world is as complete as they need it to be. From e-books, videos and photos they'll know things like tigers, elephants, and monarch butterflies existed a few generations ago just like we know mastadons existed 13000 years ago, but they won't miss them. In all of human history I don't think the global environment ever improved in any significant way and I'd expect that to remain the case. The global environment has not been as good as Audubon had it in 1820 since 1820, and I'm sure that in many ways it was better in terms of biodiversity and other factors in 1720.
I think the best case scenario is a continued decline with its speed depending on how problems are handled until some minimal level is reached. But I doubt it'd turn out so well. It's quite likely that the changing environment would trip several natural phenomena that would take the planet's climate on a runaway course. Those include the oceans warming until the enormous methane clathrate deposits on the ocean floors are released. That phenomena is already being observed. A similar mechanism occurs when greenhouse gasses trapped in frozen tundra are released as ice within the tundra melts. Warm oceans mean storms of unprecedented magnitude on a regular basis and very limited regions suitable for food crops. It doesn't sound like much fun to me.
While I know this is sounds very pessimistic I think it's just logical based on what's known at the moment and our history of fixing the environment.
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As a passing thought, which I'd better unload quickly before it gets lonely: is there a chance that the increasing rainfall will regenerate the deserts?
Rob
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As a passing thought, which I'd better unload quickly before it gets lonely: is there a chance that the increasing rainfall will regenerate the deserts?
Rob
From the U.N.E.P. Global Deserts Outlook (http://www.unep.org/geo/gdoutlook/045.asp):
Global climate change, the directional change induced by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (to be distinguished from longterm or short-term climate variations not caused by global-scale human impact on the climate system) also affects deserts. Deserts warmed-up between 1976 to 2000 at an average rate of 0.2-0.8ºC/ decade - an overall increase of 0.5-2ºC (Table 3.1), much higher than the average global temperature increase of 0.45ºC, which has been attributed to the increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (IPCC 2001). Global warming is expected to induce an overall increase in rainfall; but high latitudes are projected to warm more than the mid- and low-latitudes, resulting in more rainfall in higher latitudes linked to reduced rainfall in subtropical ones. Indeed, in most deserts within the subtropical belt, rainfall has already been decreasing in the last two decades.
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An interesting (not sure that's the right word) consequence of the global changes taking place is the rise of "Last Chance Tourism" (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249024088_Last-chance_tourism_The_boom_doom_and_gloom_of_visiting_vanishing_destinations). I'm guessing that many are also involved in what might be called "last chance photography".
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Polar bears will never replace the elephant in this room!
;-)
Rob
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One of the problems with the whole global warming discussion is the synthetic pessimism that has been injected into by those who would use the science as an ideological weapon. Taken as a whole, the science behind anthropogenic global warming has its flaws, most of which are paved over by consensus (which is the weakest kind of science). And too many ideologues have taken up its cause because it supports their socio/political views. This has lead to two problems: 1) They have sullied what good science there is behind the study of climate change by attaching extra and scientifically unsupportable baggage to it which gives skeptics much fuel from branding the entire endeavor as socio/political maneuvering. 2) Because it fits their various causes, they have created an atmosphere in which the science cannot be questioned. They have elevated it to the status of religion or cult. It is to be taken, with all the ideological and non-scientific baggage, as gospel and without question. To do so invites ridicule and accusation. It has lead to many, though far from a majority according to the polls, to accept the science faithfully, while having little or no understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of it. And this is a problem for the real science because there is no science that is above question. That is the nature of science, it is ALWAYS open to re-evaluation.
The evidence of this is everywhere and has been magnified by the popular media who understand none of the science and less of the geopolitics that they are so willing to endorse.
That evidence is the pessimism itself, reflected perfectly by DeanChriss's post above. In a real and statistical sense the probability that all consequences of global warming, regardless of the cause, are going to cause bad things for all of even most species is astronomically low. In a real and statistical sense the probability that the consequences of global warming in the balance are going to cause more bad things than good is also highly if not astronomically improbable. We are talking about a planet and its myriad species and daily we hear prognostications that all is lost due to several degrees of global temperature change. This is possibly the greatest nonsense that has ever been foisted on a presumably educated public.
It simply is not possible to introduce a few variables, of even a lot of variable into a global system and have all or even most outcomes be what we would call undesirable.
And yet, I defy anyone to find any substantial article that discusses the good things that will come from global warming and this is an indictment of the media. Likewise, find studies that show how global warming will result in benefits to society and culture...this is an indictment of the ideologues. The worse part is that the scientific community has not adequately examined the potential of good things to come from it. This oversight is bad science and tarnishes the good.
I have read, seriously, that global warming will be beneficial to some species. So far those species are mosquitos, sharks, spiders and poison oak. Compare this with the species that will be harmed. Here's a hint: They are all fury and have large limpid eyes.
A lot of people disbelieve the idea of man-made climate change because it does not fit their political beliefs and because they don't understand the science. They are, in general, referred to as idiots. There are a lot of people who likewise don't understand the science, who believe in it because it fits their agenda, they are typically thought of as progressive, caring and thoughtful. There isn't much anyone can do about either of these groups.
But for populations and governments to respond to global warming appropriately it is going to require dropping the baggage of unfounded ideological pessimism which is being used as means to socio/political ends and a media willing to report on climate change in a rational and unbiased way. As it stands now, this ideological baggage is far more damaging to the cause of a responsible reaction to climate change than any of the scientific weaknesses inherent in its propositions.
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One of the problems with the whole global warming discussion is the synthetic pessimism that has been injected into by those who would use the science as an ideological weapon.
Very cogently said. There's never an upside to anything. For instance how is it possible that enormous areas of Siberia and Canada becoming temperate and therefore better for farming would not be a boon to food production for all those hungry people I'm always being reminded of?
On a personal and more tongue in cheek note maybe we could move some mega-fauna like the rhinos and elephants to the veldt around Montana and voila extreme eco-tourism comes to North America. Then we could finally find out if grizzly bears are really all that tough. I'd like to see them mess with a bull elephant.
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Not sure I am able to accept this as negative, based-on-nonsense thinking.
The changes in life wrought by changes in climate are already clear here in Mallorca. Maybe some live too far removed from the soil.
We used to get amazingly good potatoes here, many from imported Scottish seed; some varieties were perfect for making chips (French fries) and yet others quite different, and ideal for the making of old-fashioned gnocchi. Today, finding good spuds is a matter of good luck: many come complete with built-in worm holes, and the supermarkets mainly avoid the problem by selling those dreadful whitish ones that always stay moist and are very hard to dry after boiling. Onions? I have to throw away about half of the ones I buy, and garlic seems to come with rotten cloves in every complete one. Fruit? I have a cherry tree outside the office window that once bore fruit: it has remained barren for several years - blossoms come but no fruit.
(http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/568919_orig.jpg)
Rain? In the 80s we used to get real thunderstorms and lots of rain with, sometimes, snow at sea level. Hail we get every year, and I have never had a car here that doesn't eventually bear witness to flying ice. The mountain reservoirs were mainly sufficient to cope with the needs of the island; now we face crisis every summer. During the 1800s there used to be snow-houses built up in the mountains, the purpose of which was to store snow, compact it and then mule it down to Palma as ice. Snow still falls most winters, but only lasts a day or two other than on high mountains like Puig Mayor, 1445 metres. No way people could make a business of transporting snow today! All that remain are fallen stone walls and pits.
(http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/2984163_orig.jpg)
Oh yeah, climate change is real all right; all that can be debated is what it's going to do to us.
(Please, don't let the existing wolf spiders and rats grow any larger!)
Rob
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Oh yeah, climate change is real all right; all that can be debated is what it's going to do to us.
Of course it is real. The climate has always changed and always will. What it is going to do with us is that it is going to change us. But to even suggest that all of those changes will be bad is patently unscientific.
And what you have described in your local region is what has been going on forever. Talk to any old farmer. Things change. The only thing that doesn't change is change.
And I think it is valuable for the Chicken-Littles of the world to do a little reading about the Little Ice Age. Far greater and more sudden change than what we are experiencing now. Massive amounts of global suffering, turmoil, political and social upheaval as well as population movement. And yet, many of the net outcomes resulted in the modern west we know now (with all of its ills and benefits but which we often myopically hold as some sort of 'norm" that must not be altered).
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1. Of course it is real. The climate has always changed and always will. What it is going to do with us is that it is going to change us. But to even suggest that all of those changes will be bad is patently unscientific.
And what you have described in your local region is what has been going on forever. Talk to any old farmer. Things change. The only thing that doesn't change is change.
2. And I think it is valuable for the Chicken-Littles of the world to do a little reading about the Little Ice Age. Far greater and more sudden change than what we are experiencing now. Massive amounts of global suffering, turmoil, political and social upheaval as well as population movement. And yet, many of the net outcomes resulted in the modern west we know now (with all of its ills and benefits but which we often myopically hold as some sort of 'norm" that must not be altered).
1. I can't quite get how, if what we have now is considered as good as it ever got, with the parts of the world without it trying their best to get a piece of it, any change will be for the better. Too many people, too few remaining resources; employment likely to fall rapidly due to robots and computers, food production areas shrinking. None of that seems to augur a happy future unless we kill even more people to ensure a better share for the survivors. Maybe that's what's really going down in the U.N. when they say they can't fix the Middle East beyond doing their best to flatten it...
2. If it took all of that to get to where we are now, do we really need to loose it all all over again, just to start up once more from zero? Doesn't strike me as something to look forward to at all! And, as we are already at a state of the game with pretty much all the useful areas known and divided out, can we pretend to go back to the days before civilization mapped out the modern world? I think what you are describing is actually a post-apocalypse scenario that isn't somewhere I think many would choose to go, and the principal reason why many want to halt some new 'scientific' advantages that carry as many dangers as they offer solutions. A bit like some medicines, when I come to think of it.
;-)
Rob
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I fully agree that politicizing climate science was a huge mistake. Once you inject advocacy into the process of gathering data and analyzing evidence you undermine your credibility as an information provider. The radioactive result is what we see. Far better to turn over your findings to policymakers and let them make of it what they will. They'll do so anyway. Trying to impose solutions on people from a position of assumed authority doesn't work, even when the solutions are reasonable and free of ideological taint (not the case here). The act of imposing all by itself creates resistance. Leave it to the people who've been granted authority…even if you think the process by which they've been granted authority is idiotic, that they themselves are idiots and that their idiocy is potentially world-threatening.
I'm not as pessimistic about energy issues as some of you. The stuff we have our shorts in a knot about today will fade with time and, hopefully, better & smarter tech. We have the ability not only to adapt to change but to create change. Given that we're human we could turn it all pear shaped, of course. But IMO we're at our best when we have clear-cut challenges to deal with. (Just look at what happens to us in periods of relative calm, like now. Ugh.) The depletion of fossil fuels, whenever that happens, will be one such challenge.
-Dave-
Addendum: Rob, I think starting over again from zero is a non-starter. ;) We've used up too much of our easy-to-access energy resources. A future rebuild wouldn't have the juice to rebuild with. This is our shot at sustaining anything beyond hunter/gatherer and small-scale agricultural societies.
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I fully agree that politicizing climate science was a huge mistake. Once you inject advocacy into the process of gathering data and analyzing evidence you undermine your credibility as an information provider. The radioactive result is what we see. Far better to turn over your findings to policymakers and let them make of it what they will. They'll do so anyway. Trying to impose solutions on people from a position of assumed authority doesn't work, even when the solutions are reasonable and free of ideological taint (not the case here). The act of imposing all by itself creates resistance. Leave it to the people who've been granted authority…even if you think the process by which they've been granted authority is idiotic, that they themselves are idiots and that their idiocy is potentially world-threatening.
(...)
Given the fact that policymakers are almost only concerned about urgent and important matters, making sure that a given concern appears in this category of the Eisenhower matrix is essential in ensuring that something will be made to address the case. This, however, should not have been made by scientists observing the process, as you suggest.
Maybe they thought that it was too important not to act immediately?
Cheers,
Fabien
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Now it is less obvious to figure out to what extend, if at all, electric car result in a more efficient usage of available energy. It is complex because it depends on the mix of energy sources that depends on the location.
I would be interested in any link pointing to a scientific comparison, but my guess is that overall electric cars may not be efficient today in terms of fossil energy usage compated to gasoline cars. I would love to be proven wrong.
Bernard,
I do not have a source to link to, but my recollection is that even if the extra electricity used to charge an electric car's battery comes from coal, the emissions from the coal plant are significantly less than from burning gasoline in an internal combustion engineering — large scale power plants are just far more efficient than the rapidly fluctuating on-demand operation of an ICE. It gets better when the extra load of battery charging is met with gas-burning plants, and even moreso if adequately safe fission or fusion generation becomes viable.
On the other hand, what if the car uses cleaner fuels like propane or compressed natural gas? Or if the car improves efficiency with "kinetic energy recycling", as in a hybrid?
My fantasy is storing energy from all kinds of sources by generating and transporting hydrogen, pumping water up-hill in hydroelectric schemes, and so on — and moving away from amazingly energy inefficient food sources like beef, and making children more expensive to raise and less of an economically exploitable asset to their parents, so that we are motivated to have less of them ...
Meanwhile, I am happy with the very local use of solar power, as in my roof-top photo-voltaic system with nett metering, where the surplus output is put back onto the grid, for credit against drawing from the grid at night-time and in the dark days of winter. More practical than the massive battery needed to go off the grid.
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In a real and statistical sense the probability that all consequences of global warming, regardless of the cause, are going to cause bad things for all of even most species is astronomically low. In a real and statistical sense the probability that the consequences of global warming in the balance are going to cause more bad things than good is also highly if not astronomically improbable. We are talking about a planet and its myriad species and daily we hear prognostications that all is lost due to several degrees of global temperature change. This is possibly the greatest nonsense that has ever been foisted on a presumably educated public.
That's an excellent point and very insightful. Many years ago, I assumed that the dangers of increased CO2 levels were based upon sound scientific evidence, as a result of the media all singing the same tune. I was very perplexed why governments were not taking immediate action, such as legislating to phase out the current coal-fired power stations and banning the construction of new coal-fired power stations, and encouraging investment in electric vehicles, and so on.
However, when I began delving into the subject, reading contrary evidence-supported opinions on the internet, and books written by Professors in Geology who attempted to place the current slight warming in a geological context, I began to appreciate how biased and one-sided the manic alarmism about anthropogenic climate change appears to be.
One issue I found particularly significant, and beyond doubt, because the effect can be demonstrated in real time, is the effect that increased CO2 levels have on plant growth.
Apparently, it's been a common practice for many years for certain farmers to pump CO2 into greenhouses in order to increase plant growth.
As I understand, most plants, including edible crops as well as grasses and trees in rainforests, tend to grow more vigorously in elevated levels of atmospheric CO2, in the same soils with the same amount of water.
Apparently, the pores (or stomata) in the plants' leaves shrink in elevated levels of CO2, resulting in less evaporation.
The following site, or pdf, provides details.
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/foodsecurity/GlobalFoodProductionEstimates2050.pdf
Since this is a photographic forum, I've attached an image of page 12 of the pdf. Notice how symmetrical and meaningful the composition is. ;D
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That's an excellent point and very insightful. Many years ago, I assumed that the dangers of increased CO2 levels were based upon sound scientific evidence, as a result of the media all singing the same tune. I was very perplexed why governments were not taking immediate action, such as legislating to phase out the current coal-fired power stations and banning the construction of new coal-fired power stations, and encouraging investment in electric vehicles, and so on.
However, when I began delving into the subject, reading contrary evidence-supported opinions on the internet, and books written by Professors in Geology who attempted to place the current slight warming in a geological context, I began to appreciate how biased and one-sided the manic alarmism about anthropogenic climate change appears to be.
One issue I found particularly significant, and beyond doubt, because the effect can be demonstrated in real time, is the effect that increased CO2 levels have on plant growth.
Apparently, it's been a common practice for many years for certain farmers to pump CO2 into greenhouses in order to increase plant growth.
As I understand, most plants, including edible crops as well as grasses and trees in rainforests, tend to grow more vigorously in elevated levels of atmospheric CO2, in the same soils with the same amount of water.
Apparently, the pores (or stomata) in the plants' leaves shrink in elevated levels of CO2, resulting in less evaporation.
The following site, or pdf, provides details.
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/foodsecurity/GlobalFoodProductionEstimates2050.pdf
Since this is a photographic forum, I've attached an image of page 12 of the pdf. Notice how symmetrical and meaningful the composition is. ;D
And yes, trees are supposedly the lungs of Earth, taking in our excess carbon emissions and giving us the oxygen that we need in kind return.
So let's deforest the Amazon at an even faster rate and create more freed carbon gasses and less oxygen! Astounding equilibrium - why didn't I think of that first? Soon, the world will be totally green and blue, and not an O-dependent animal will be left to scratch at it for sustenance. Perfection.
Rob
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The Amazon represents a relatively small percentage of O2 production by trees. The Taiga in Russia and other northern coniferous forests make up the largest percent of O2 production. They are currently in no significant jeopardy. Not advocating any abuses of the Amazon. Just pointing out how hot topic items aren't always what the media and advocacy groups make them out to be.
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To a point more CO2 offers benefits, but you have to take advantage of them. Too much, however, as in all things is too much. This is why people working outside the realm of politics & polemic are looking not only at ways to make use of extra CO2 but also at ways to capture and sequester it.
As a wine aficianado I've noticed over the past few years that some continental European vintners have been investing in English land to grow their grapes on. Due to climatic changes over the past century or so you can now cultivate very fine champagne grapes in Sussex. Who'da thunk that?! Here in the US Napa Valley grape growers are setting up outposts in Oregon for similar reasons.
It's likely that our industrial activity has interrupted the cycle of ice ages the Earth has seen in (relatively) recent history. For some species of life, including we humans, this is a good thing. For others not so much. Being a human I tend to prefer the good for us outcomes. But good for us also means not greenhousing ourselves into becoming a second Venus. If we do it right we could have a planet with less extreme hot & cold zones and thus ultimately less extreme weather. At the same time we'll have to deal with formerly tropical & isolated pests, and the diseases they carry, spreading across more of the globe. Hello, Zika & friends!
Any attempt at creating a static planet with a fixed ecosystem will be skated off the rink by the passage of time. Yet we can choose to be smarter rather than dumber in our relationship with the planet.
-Dave-
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To a point more CO2 offers benefits, but you have to take advantage of them. Too much, however, as in all things is too much. This is why people working outside the realm of politics & polemic are looking not only at ways to make use of extra CO2 but also at ways to capture and sequester it.
As a wine aficianado I've noticed over the past few years that some continental European vintners have been investing in English land to grow their grapes on. Due to climatic changes over the past century or so you can now cultivate very fine champagne grapes in Sussex. Who'da thunk that?! Here in the US Napa Valley grape growers are setting up outposts in Oregon for similar reasons.
It's likely that our industrial activity has interrupted the cycle of ice ages the Earth has seen in (relatively) recent history. For some species of life, including we humans, this is a good thing. For others not so much. Being a human I tend to prefer the good for us outcomes. But good for us also means not greenhousing ourselves into becoming a second Venus. If we do it right we could have a planet with less extreme hot & cold zones and thus ultimately less extreme weather. At the same time we'll have to deal with formerly tropical & isolated pests, and the diseases they carry, spreading across more of the globe. Hello, Zika & friends!
Any attempt at creating a static planet with a fixed ecosystem will be skated off the rink by the passage of time. Yet we can choose to be smarter rather than dumber in our relationship with the planet.
-Dave-
I could vote for you, Dave; fancy running in either the UK or Spanish political scene?
Rob
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"To a point more CO2 offers benefits"…
Unless you are in a car in a garage!
Cheers,
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"To a point more CO2 offers benefits"…
Unless you are in a car in a garage!
Cheers,
Or waiting to get off the Palma - Barcelona ferry.
Regarding the garage - may be exactly what one was looking to find.
Rob
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And yes, trees are supposedly the lungs of Earth, taking in our excess carbon emissions and giving us the oxygen that we need in kind return.
So let's deforest the Amazon at an even faster rate and create more freed carbon gasses and less oxygen! Astounding equilibrium - why didn't I think of that first? Soon, the world will be totally green and blue, and not an O-dependent animal will be left to scratch at it for sustenance. Perfection.
Rob
You should try not to confuse issues, Rob. ;)
Taking care of our environment, disposing of toxic waste in a responsible manner, reducing and hopefully eliminating the atmospheric pollution from vehicles and coal-fired power stations, and reducing the amount of deforestation that is taking place continuously in many areas, is sensible and desirable.
However, describing CO2 as a pollutant and imagining we can turn down CO2 levels, like operating a control knob to change our climate for the better, might be plain fanciful.
Nevertheless, any effective and efficient change in energy supply methods which can reduce environmental and atmospheric pollution is welcome. My only concern is that we might be wasting huge sums of money through a misidentification of the real problem, which is probably not CO2, a clean and odourless gas essential for all life.
For example, as a consequence of misidentifying the problem, a country might reject the option of building the more efficient and less polluting 'Ultra Supercritical coal-fired power stations', (which reduce to negligible levels the real and hazardous pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, various nitrogen oxides, heavy metals, dust, particulate carbon, and so on) simply because such advanced power stations are still not able to significantly reduce CO2 emissions which, on balance, might turn out to be beneficial for mankind at current and future increased levels.
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You should try not to confuse issues, Rob. ;)
Taking care of our environment, disposing of toxic waste in a responsible manner, reducing and hopefully eliminating the atmospheric pollution from vehicles and coal-fired power stations, and reducing the amount of deforestation that is taking place continuously in many areas, is sensible and desirable.
However, describing CO2 as a pollutant and imagining we can turn down CO2 levels, like operating a control knob to change our climate for the better, might be plain fanciful.
Nevertheless, any effective and efficient change in energy supply methods which can reduce environmental and atmospheric pollution is welcome. My only concern is that we might be wasting huge sums of money through a misidentification of the real problem, which is probably not CO2, a clean and odourless gas essential for all life.
For example, as a consequence of misidentifying the problem, a country might reject the option of building the more efficient and less polluting 'Ultra Supercritical coal-fired power stations', (which reduce to negligible levels the real and hazardous pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, various nitrogen oxides, heavy metals, dust, particulate carbon, and so on) simply because such advanced power stations are still not able to significantly reduce CO2 emissions which, on balance, might turn out to be beneficial for mankind at current and future increased levels.
Confuse... but Ray, it's equally futile pretending that they can be separated. The big problem is that none happens in its own space: it all goes down at the same time and becomes/is an inextricable part of the same whole. There is no effective isolation or distinction of effects: the best we can do, have we but incentive enough, is to attack the little bits that we can deal with, and do them first; a step at a time or, as they said at school: slowly, slowly catchy monkey.
Rob
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"To a point more CO2 offers benefits"…
Unless you are in a car in a garage!
Cheers,
In those circumstances it would be Carbon Monoxide (CO) that would be far more dangerous than the CO2 emissions. ;)
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I could vote for you, Dave; fancy running in either the UK or Spanish political scene?
I'd rather be eaten alive by hyenas.
I'd also rather not have us become overly enamored of CO2. We know with good accuracy what levels were like at various times in the past, and we can see that higher-than-current levels didn't lead to catastrophe. T-Rex (not Marc Bolan but the dudes he copied) and her pals managed fine with what we now deem high CO2 levels for well over 100 million years. So IMO no need to freak out over current or even near-future projected levels. Some things will change with overall warmer temps, but we can deal with that. (Could be messy for awhile.) But consider water. We need water to survive. To a point drinking more of it is good for you. But past that point it becomes toxic. The deal is similar with sodium or glucose. Or, when it comes to atmospheric health, carbon dioxide. Best to be careful while we get a better handle on where the CO2 toxicity tipping point actually is.
Politicos and ideologues tend not to deal well with anything that rubs up against their worldviews. Thus, when it comes to energy and climate issues, the dual phenomena of panic and denial. Two sides of the same coin really. Hopefully we'll muddle through.
-Dave-
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Politicos and ideologues tend not to deal well with anything that rubs up against their worldviews. Thus, when it comes to energy and climate issues, the dual phenomena of panic and denial. Two sides of the same coin really. Hopefully we'll muddle through.
-Dave-
Panic and denial, to me, are the benign side of what politicos and ideologues do with the issue. Manipulation is where it becomes concerning.
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In those circumstances it would be Carbon Monoxide (CO) that would be far more dangerous than the CO2 emissions. ;)
Oh Ray, what's an atom, more or less, here or there!
;-)
Rob
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When I was a kid my dad & I often went fishing in Mitchell's Bay, Ontario. He joked more than once with my mom & me that the smallmouth bass in the Bay were feistier than elsewhere because Lake St. Clair contained less heavy water (D2O) than the other Great Lakes. (I grew up in the sort of household where you'd both get this joke and find it funny.)
-Dave-
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Oh Ray, what's an atom, more or less, here or there!
;-)
Rob
Could be everything, regarding your personal life. Join a hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen atom together, and you have the deadly poisonous gas, Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN). Okay! ;)
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When I was a kid my dad & I often went fishing in Mitchell's Bay, Ontario. He joked more than once with my mom & me that the smallmouth bass in the Bay were feistier than elsewhere because Lake St. Clair contained less heavy water (D2O) than the other Great Lakes. (I grew up in the sort of household where you'd both get this joke and find it funny.)
-Dave-
Which explains the escape to guitars! And the effort to learn how to play 'em. A good amp and you hear nothing else (ever again?)!
;-)
Rob
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Which explains the escape to guitars! And the effort to learn how to play 'em. A good amp and you hear nothing else (ever again?)!
;-)
Helped get me out of cleaning fish, that's for sure. 8)
-Dave-
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Rob,
In view of the apparent temporary - if understandable - death of this section of LuLa...
What do you consider to be the underlying reason for the apparent temporary - if understandable - death of this section of LuLa?
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Rob,
...I felt an obligation to try to apply some helpful sparks to its chest...
Did you feel obliged to try to apply some helpful sparks to its chest because you are responsible for the apparent temporary - if understandable - death of this section of LuLa?
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I've come late to this discussion but am enjoying it. Nothing to contribute at this time though - keep it up guys....
Jim
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The old man in action, locale unknown (but could well be Mitchell's Bay), c. 1958. Likely taken by his friend Ben.
:D
-Dave-