The Climate Change Hoax

[BobDavid]

By the way, coal mining is a hazardous job. Life expectancy and health problems plague minors. If the government wants to keep these people employed, there are other better options.

Perhaps some stink tanks have studied the issue ad nauseam. The health care industry profits from treating sick miners, I suppose big pharma comes out okay as do existing coal burning plants. From a myopic Koch-head viewpoint, more coal is good for America. And so is fracking in Florida.

[Alan Klein]

...I think switching over to other energy sources is a win win regardless of whether climate change is a hoax or not. The economic benefit of transforming energy reliance from fossil fuels to renewables is unfathomable. R &D, new infrasture, manufacturing, installation, maintenance, and unforeseeable positions will be created and economies will grow.

Your postulate is not true.  The "invisible" hand of free markets determines the best and most efficient and most wealth creating than any other system devised by man especially one controlled and decided by a central government.  This reminds me of the old 5 year economic plans of the Soviet Union where they decided what industries should be favored and which shouldn't, how much each industry should produce, etc.  Their five year plans continually failed until the whole country went broke.   welcome back Russia. 


Individual people, each making individual decisions, together will influence the best methods, products and industries.  Just look around where you live.  All those businesses operating to provide you with anything you want, without the direction of the government.  Where the government interceded like Solyndra, or the use of corn to mix 10% ethanol into gasoline, the results are, well, less than stellar.  Are you happy that some of your hard earned tax dollars are going to rich people in the form of a tax rebate so they can buy a $100,000 Tesla electric car for $75,000 while you're still driving a 5 year old Camry? 

You also don't say how you "switch over" from current methods.  It's unconstitutional for the government to take over (steal) private property.  That means government would have to regulate existing energy companies out of business and provide tax incentives for renewable industries.  Obama tried that, and Hillary said she would continue what Obama started.  So, what happened?  Trump won.  People aren't gone to stand for the government taking their property and their jobs away from them.  We still live in a democracy. 

Even if the government could do this, where is the money coming from?  Renewable fuels are much more expensive than fossil fuels.    Where do people get  thousands of dollars updating how they heat their home and provide electricity for it? 

[Alan Klein]

By the way, coal mining is a hazardous job. Life expectancy and health problems plague minors. If the government wants to keep these people employed, there are other better options.

Perhaps some stink tanks have studied the issue ad nauseam. The health care industry profits from treating sick miners, I suppose big pharma comes out okay as do existing coal burning plants. From a myopic Koch-head viewpoint, more coal is good for America. And so is fracking in Florida.

So is forestry.  Should we stop providing lumber to build your house?  In any case, who are you to decide what someone else choses to do to feed their family?  Don't you believe in freedom?  Why do liberals always want to tell others how they should live?  It's not your business.

[LesPalenik]

So is forestry.  Should we stop providing lumber to build your house?  In any case, who are you to decide what someone else choses to do to feed their family?  Don't you believe in freedom?  Why do liberals always want to tell others how they should live?  It's not your business.

Lumber is the best example of harvestable and renewable resource. Many of the wooden beams in the houses will last over hundred years. Possibly longer than they would last as trees in the forest.
 

[Ray]

No matter what side of the fence one stands on climate change, all can agree that spewing mercury, lead, carcinogens, and other forms of noxious particulate matter into the atmosphere is hazardous to health.

Of course. That's why Ultra-SuperCritical power plants have been designed, to eliminate such harmful emissions.

Methane (CH4) is over a magnitude more destructive than CO2. Methane comes from burning off fossil fuels, human and animal waste, landfills, and other sources.

First, we should bear in mind that methane represents a very tiny proportion of the atmosphere. Current levels of CO2 are also tiny at 400 parts per million, or 0.04%, but methane levels are much tinier at less than 2 parts per million (or 1834 parts per billion, to be more precise).

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is far worse than methane. It lingers in the atmosphere for at least one hundred years.

And its concentration is significantly less than methane; only 0.328 parts per billion.

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCS) are several magnitudes worse than methane.

These chemicals are not produced by any natural processes. They're entirely synthetic and their use was totally banned in 2010 because of their effect on the ozone layer. Problem solved.

CO2, CH4, N2O, CFCS are known as "greenhouse" gases. The amount of gases that enter the atmosphere have been tracked for decades. Data is data. It appears that data analysis is at the heart of the climate change controversy.

There'd be no life on our planet without greenhouse gasses. The most significant greenhouse gas is water vapour and clouds. They account for about about 80% of the greenhouse effect, very roughly.

So whether or not one wants to argue about climate change, immediate public health concerns as well as environmental impact (steadily lower pH levels in fresh and salt water bodies) are quantifiable.

No, they are not always quantifiable, and claiming they are is a part of the hoax. As I mentioned in reply #70, the pH of the oceans varies considerably, from day to day, from month to month, and season to season, and varies by a greater amount than the predicted fall in the average pH during the next century, if CO2 levels continue to rise.

We might be able to fairly accurately measure the CO2 levels in the atmosphere based on an assumption that CO2 mixes well and is evenly distributed, but even this is not certain, according to NASA.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/nasa-releases-new-co2-data-refutes-conventional-wisdom

I think switching over to other energy sources is a win win regardless of whether climate change is a hoax or not. The economic benefit of transforming energy reliance from fossil fuels to renewables is unfathomable. R &D, new infrasture, manufacturing, installation, maintenance, and unforeseeable positions will be created and economies will grow.

Well let's look at certain future scenarios that we might regret.

(1) In a hundred year's time, after succeeding in switching over to renewables, and after confirming with continuing research that elevated levels of CO2 do in fact have a more significant effect on warming than any natural cause, we also discover that we are heading into another ice age which is predicted to be more severe than the last Little Ice Age (LIA).

We then realise if we hadn't taken any action to reduce CO2 levels, the increased CO2 levels of perhaps 600 ppm, would have protected us from the increasing cold weather. Blast it! If only we'd listened to those skeptics. 

(2) Let's suppose in a hundred years' time we learn with continuing research that rising levels of CO2 have an insignificant effect on global warming, and that natural causes dominate. Let's suppose we also discover, due to our greater understanding of the climate and collection of more data, that extreme weather events really are increasing, due to natural causes.

It then becomes apparent we have made a huge mistake by spending trillions of dollars in switching from fossil fuels to renewables instead of spending the same amount of money protecting ourselves from extreme weather events.

The issue is not as simple as you seem to think. 

[Paulo Bizarro]

Only a mean-spirited person would ask a stupid question like that.

There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. I am not a mean spirited person, my questions was straight to the point. As a Portuguese, one of the most shameful moments in my recent country's history was watching our then prime minister, Mr. Barroso, hosting a summit in 2003 in the Azores, where Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair aired their lies about why we need to invade Iraq.

Mr. Barroso has since then moved on to more important jobs has President of EU Commission and today is non.exec chairman in Goldman Sachs. Enough said...

[Hans Kruse]

Are you happy that some of your hard earned tax dollars are going to rich people in the form of a tax rebate so they can buy a $100,000 Tesla electric car for $75,000 while you're still driving a 5 year old Camry? 

Where do you find $25.000 rebates for a Tesla?

[Alan Goldhammer]

Methane (CH4) is over a magnitude more destructive than CO2. Methane comes from burning off fossil fuels, human and animal waste, landfills, and other sources.

Methane is highly combustible and, if it is part of the fuel mix it will burn completely.  Methane does leak from the ground during fracking and get into the atmosphere.  It's not just animal waste that is a source of methane but incomplete digestion in the stomachs of ruminants (cows, sheep, goats) whose flatulence contains significant amounts of methane.  In a working paper I read a number of years ago, EPA identified this as a significant source of greenhouse gas.

[Alan Goldhammer]

The following article describes the hassles and unnecessary expenses imposed upon the construction of the USA's first Ultra-SuperCritical coal-fired power plant.

http://cornerstonemag.net/setting-the-benchmark-the-worlds-most-efficient-coal-fired-power-plants/

"The 600-MW John W. Turk Jr. power plant in Arkansas holds many distinctions. Completed in December 2012, it was the first USC plant built in the U.S. It also reigns as the country’s most efficient coal-fired power plant with an electrical efficiency of 40% HHV basis (~42% LHV basis). After the project was announced in 2006, American Electric Power’s (AEP) Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEPCO) spent several years trying to secure the necessary permits while fighting legal battles launched as part of national anti-coal campaigns. Under the legal settlement, SWEPCO agreed to retire an older 582-MW coal-fired unit in Texas, secure 400 MW of renewable power, and set aside US$10 million for land conservation and energy efficiency projects. At a final cost of US$1.8 billion to build the plant, the Turk plant also became the most expensive project ever built in Arkansas.

Ray, you really need to be more careful in your citations and quotes.  You took language from a coal industry magazine and neglected to look at the whole story behind the litigation here.  The lawsuits were not a part of "anti-coal" activity but a broader ecological lawsuit regarding the siting of the power plant and the transmission lines.  this is a far more complicated story than you make it out to be.

[LesPalenik]

Methane is highly combustible and, if it is part of the fuel mix it will burn completely.  Methane does leak from the ground during fracking and get into the atmosphere.  It's not just animal waste that is a source of methane but incomplete digestion in the stomachs of ruminants (cows, sheep, goats) whose flatulence contains significant amounts of methane.  In a working paper I read a number of years ago, EPA identified this as a significant source of greenhouse gas.

Methane is twenty one times more potent at trapping heat from the sun than carbon dioxide. Though less prevalent in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it is the most destructive of the greenhouse gases. It’s not only farting, actually cows’ burping creates almost twenty times more methane than flatulence. Whichever orifice, each individual cow lets out between thirty and fifty gallons of methane per day.  Multiply this by 1.5  billion cattle in the world today, and you have a major catastrophy looming.

[JoeKitchen]

As far as I am concerned, everyone is wrong here. 

Coal is dirty and is effecting the atmosphere.  It is also a dyeing industry, not due to regulations or an increase in renewables, but because gas and oil are more efficient.  The only way coal comes back is if gas and oil become more expensive and less efficient. 

Renewables are nice, but inefficient compared to fossil fuels.  The post about how many jobs solar employs just helps prove that point.  I once remember seeing that it take a tiny faction of a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of oil and bring it to market (cant remember the exact ratio, 30:1 ), so the amount of energy harvested is significantly higher then the amount used to harvest it.  I doubt this same ratio for solar is even a fourth as good, especially when you take into consideration the amount of jobs. 

Point being, solar is nice, but too expensive to really take off until fossil fuels get to the point where solar is cheaper.  At that point though, we're all screwed either due to climate change or the very fact that energy production will be so expensive, it will put an undo burden on the economy. 

Anyway, even if solar, and others like wind, etc, were cheaper, the energy can only be harvested in the right conditions.  For solar, the right conditions have the possibility of happening only half the time, and that is only considering daytime light only.  Throw in weather, and it probably drops to a third.  Not to say you cant produce a lot of energy during those perfect conditions, but you cant really store it either.  Batteries can only be charged so much, not to mention are expensive, so any excess produced is wasted.  If you need some energy on demand, and it is night time or winter, or the wind is not blowing, or you don't live near a thermal vent, you're kind of screwed. 

This is why I feel nuclear is the real answer.  Unfortunately, both sides, here in the USA, don't want to touch it.  No new nuclear power plant has been built since the 1970s, because they are "unsafe."  However, since no nuclear power plant has been built is 40+ year, none of them have modern failsafes, so it is a self fulfilling prophecy.  Also, no politician wants to approve transporting spent fuel throw their district, which creates more problems.  I find it silly no one is advocating nuclear. 

Furthermore, I don't think we will ever be able to get away from some type of liquid fuel source, whatever that may be.  Batteries in cars take to long to charge for most to feel comfortable, not to mention heavy machinery will never be able to operate like that anyway.  Bio-diesel is a great alternative, however it is more expensive to produce and has less energy then petroleum based diesel, so once again I don't see it taking off right away.   

[DeanChriss]

In the 1950s compelling peer-reviewed scientific evidence of the harms of smoking began to confront the tobacco industry. It responded with sophisticated public relations campaigns to undermine and distort the emerging science. The strategy of producing scientific uncertainty significantly delayed regulatory changes and public health efforts. The truth eventually came out, but not until countless preventable smoking related deaths had occurred.

In the 1960s the sugar industry followed in tobacco’s footsteps, funding research that cast doubt on sugar's role in heart disease. For the most part it did so by blaming fat. The goal was not to disprove the link between sugar and heart disease, but only to create doubt sufficient to keep the public eating lots of sugar. The strategy worked like a charm.

The petroleum industry began conducting climate research as early as 1957 and knew the potential for catastrophic climate risks by 1968 at the latest. Exxon conducted extensive research using carbon dioxide sensors on oil tankers to measure CO2 concentrations over the ocean and then funded elaborate computer models to help predict what temperatures would do in the future. Based on that and other research they spent loads of money climate proofing the company. A 1982 internal “corporate primer,” told ’s Exxon’s leaders that climate change "would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion" and "there are some potentially catastrophic events that must be considered. Once the effects are measurable, they might not be reversible." The document was not released outside the company but was subsequently discovered in litigation.

It seems Exxon believed their own and other climate research enough to spend lots of money based on the predictions. At the same time Exxon and the petroleum industry in general adopted the tobacco strategy regarding climate change, only more so. They invested unprecedented sums of money to obscure the science of climate change and in contributions to political candidates who would downplay global warming. They funded think tanks to spread selected climate denial "facts" (aka half-truths) and actually recruited lobbying talent from the tobacco industry.

Likewise, since 1997 the Koch Brothers gave at least $100,343,292 to 84 groups denying climate change science.  A Yale study published in the fall of 2015 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that money from Exxon and the Koch brothers played a key role in polarizing the climate debate in America. As with sugar and tobacco, the petroleum industry only had to provide uncertainty and loads of professionally devised half-truths for armchair scientists to latch onto and argue about.

As a friend of mine says, “Marketing works.”, especially when you are trying to convince people to take the easy path and keep on doing what they are already doing.

[Ray]

Ray, you really need to be more careful in your citations and quotes.  You took language from a coal industry magazine and neglected to look at the whole story behind the litigation here.  The lawsuits were not a part of "anti-coal" activity but a broader ecological lawsuit regarding the siting of the power plant and the transmission lines.  this is a far more complicated story than you make it out to be.

I always like to get both sides of the story, Alan. I can accept that the lawsuits and delays were not necessarily directly related to objections to coal, but I suspect they would have been a part of the motivation of some of the environmental objections.

However, I get the impression that the new EPA rules regarding CO2 emissions, which came into effect later, and which Trump has now attempted to remove, would have blocked the development of any more of these advanced, low emission, coal power plants. Is this not true?

[BobDavid]

In the 1950s compelling peer-reviewed scientific evidence of the harms of smoking began to confront the tobacco industry. It responded with sophisticated public relations campaigns to undermine and distort the emerging science. The strategy of producing scientific uncertainty significantly delayed regulatory changes and public health efforts. The truth eventually came out, but not until countless preventable smoking related deaths had occurred.

In the 1960s the sugar industry followed in tobacco’s footsteps, funding research that cast doubt on sugar's role in heart disease. For the most part it did so by blaming fat. The goal was not to disprove the link between sugar and heart disease, but only to create doubt sufficient to keep the public eating lots of sugar. The strategy worked like a charm.

The petroleum industry began conducting climate research as early as 1957 and knew the potential for catastrophic climate risks by 1968 at the latest. Exxon conducted extensive research using carbon dioxide sensors on oil tankers to measure CO2 concentrations over the ocean and then funded elaborate computer models to help predict what temperatures would do in the future. Based on that and other research they spent loads of money climate proofing the company. A 1982 internal “corporate primer,” told ’s Exxon’s leaders that climate change "would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion" and "there are some potentially catastrophic events that must be considered. Once the effects are measurable, they might not be reversible." The document was not released outside the company but was subsequently discovered in litigation.

It seems Exxon believed their own and other climate research enough to spend lots of money based on the predictions. At the same time Exxon and the petroleum industry in general adopted the tobacco strategy regarding climate change, only more so. They invested unprecedented sums of money to obscure the science of climate change and in contributions to political candidates who would downplay global warming. They funded think tanks to spread selected climate denial "facts" (aka half-truths) and actually recruited lobbying talent from the tobacco industry.

Likewise, since 1997 the Koch Brothers gave at least $100,343,292 to 84 groups denying climate change science.  A Yale study published in the fall of 2015 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that money from Exxon and the Koch brothers played a key role in polarizing the climate debate in America. As with sugar and tobacco, the petroleum industry only had to provide uncertainty and loads of professionally devised half-truths for armchair scientists to latch onto and argue about.

As a friend of mine says, “Marketing works.”, especially when you are trying to convince people to take the easy path and keep on doing what they are already doing.

You've nailed it. ... And CFCs are still in use throughout the world, including the USA: Chemical refrigerants are assigned an R number which is determined systematically according to molecular structure. Common refrigerants are frequently referred to as Freon (a registered trademark of DuPont). The following is a list of refrigerants with their Type/Prefix, ASHRAE designated numbers, IUPAC chemical name, molecular formula, CAS registry number / Blend Name, Atmospheric Lifetime in years, Semi-Empirical Ozone depletion potential, net Global warming potential over a 100-year time horizon, Occupational exposure limit/Permissible exposure limit in parts per million (volume per volume) over a time-weighted average (TWA) concentration for a normal eight-hour work day and a 40-hour work week, ASHRAE 34 Safety Group in Toxicity & Flammability (in Air @ 60 °C & 101.3 kPa) classing, Refrigerant Concentration Limit / Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health in parts per million (volume per volume) & grams per cubic meter, Molecular mass in Atomic mass units, Normal Boiling Point (or Bubble & Dew Points for the Zeotrope(400)-series)(or Normal Boiling Point & Azeotropic Temperature for the Azeotrope(500)-series) at 101,325 Pa (1 atmosphere) in degrees Celsius, Critical Temperature in degrees Celsius and Critical Pressure (absolute) in kiloPascals.

The Koch Bros. are the largest landholders in the state of Florida, primarily through Georgia-Pacific. The Koch Bros own pipelines that move natural gas to power plants in Fla. The Koch Bros are chomping at the bit to begin fracking in the Everglades. ... Florida is a peninsula that is purely limestone. Imagine that. Limestone is porous. Anybody whose taken a geology course understands the vulnerabilities of limestone.

I think people who are defending the status quo are burying their heads in the sand. Adolf Hitler's scientists identified a correlation between smoking cigarettes and a rise in cancer rates. By the mid 1950s, Madison Avenue came up with some pithy ads: "More doctors smoke Camels than any other brand."  I like the ads showing doctors enjoying their cigarettes. The Tobacco Institute was a nonprofit organization paid for by the big tobacco companies. The mission was to discredit legitamte science. Anybody who argues in favor of dumping heavy metals into the atmosphere along with CFCs, methane, nitrous oxide, etc. is wearing rose-colored glasses. And CFCs are refrigerants--air conditioners, refrigerators, aerosol spray propellants require CFCs. CFCs are classified by an "R" rating.

I think it's important to spend time reading a bit about chemistry, especially organic, before defending the likes of idiotic politicians and self-serving businesses.

[BobDavid]

So is forestry.  Should we stop providing lumber to build your house?  In any case, who are you to decide what someone else choses to do to feed their family?  Don't you believe in freedom?  Why do liberals always want to tell others how they should live?  It's not your business.

You assume I am a liberal. ... You do not know anything about who I am, what I believe, political leanings, religious views, educational background, etc. I think name-calling and making sweeping generalizations exhibit ignorance at best and self-interest at worse.

Your definition of freedom sounds different from those who disagree with you. Do you realize our government consistently and arbitrarily throws the word "freedom" around with reckless abandon. What business does the government have in sticking its nose in people's bedrooms, endorsing Citizens United, enabling lobbies, special interest groups, and city, counties, and states to gerrymander and redline?

What is your definition of freedom? Is your definition based on ideological economic models rather than ethics?

[LesPalenik]

As far as I am concerned, everyone is wrong here. 
Coal is dirty and is effecting the atmosphere.  It is also a dyeing industry, not due to regulations or an increase in renewables, but because gas and oil are more efficient.  The only way coal comes back is if gas and oil become more expensive and less efficient. 

Renewables are nice, but inefficient compared to fossil fuels.  The post about how many jobs solar employs just helps prove that point.  I once remember seeing that it take a tiny faction of a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of oil and bring it to market (cant remember the exact ratio, 30:1 ), so the amount of energy harvested is significantly higher then the amount used to harvest it.  I doubt this same ratio for solar is even a fourth as good, especially when you take into consideration the amount of jobs. 

Point being, solar is nice, but too expensive to really take off until fossil fuels get to the point where solar is cheaper.  At that point though, we're all screwed either due to climate change or the very fact that energy production will be so expensive, it will put an undo burden on the economy. 

Anyway, even if solar, and others like wind, etc, were cheaper, the energy can only be harvested in the right conditions.  For solar, the right conditions have the possibility of happening only half the time, and that is only considering daytime light only.  Throw in weather, and it probably drops to a third.  Not to say you cant produce a lot of energy during those perfect conditions, but you cant really store it either.  Batteries can only be charged so much, not to mention are expensive, so any excess produced is wasted.  If you need some energy on demand, and it is night time or winter, or the wind is not blowing, or you don't live near a thermal vent, you're kind of screwed. 

This is why I feel nuclear is the real answer.  Unfortunately, both sides, here in the USA, don't want to touch it.

There is one more option - Using cow's methane as fuel

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

As far as I am concerned, everyone is wrong here. 

Coal is dirty and is effecting the atmosphere.  It is also a dyeing industry, not due to regulations or an increase in renewables, but because gas and oil are more efficient.  The only way coal comes back is if gas and oil become more expensive and less efficient. 

Renewables are nice, but inefficient compared to fossil fuels.  The post about how many jobs solar employs just helps prove that point.  I once remember seeing that it take a tiny faction of a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of oil and bring it to market (cant remember the exact ratio, 30:1 ), so the amount of energy harvested is significantly higher then the amount used to harvest it.  I doubt this same ratio for solar is even a fourth as good, especially when you take into consideration the amount of jobs. 

Point being, solar is nice, but too expensive to really take off until fossil fuels get to the point where solar is cheaper.  At that point though, we're all screwed either due to climate change or the very fact that energy production will be so expensive, it will put an undo burden on the economy. 

Anyway, even if solar, and others like wind, etc, were cheaper, the energy can only be harvested in the right conditions.  For solar, the right conditions have the possibility of happening only half the time, and that is only considering daytime light only.  Throw in weather, and it probably drops to a third.  Not to say you cant produce a lot of energy during those perfect conditions, but you cant really store it either.

While I broadly agree with the parts above, I disagree with some of the storage capacity doom and gloom for electricity.

New technologies bring new opportunities, not only jobs (research/development, infrastructure, installation and maintenance and renewal after a few decades) but also new solutions for new challenges. For electricity that is not available 24/7, or not 100% predictable (variable), one can create buffer capacity e.g. in the form of Pumped Hydroelectric Storage, or various distributed local storage points (even electric car batteries can be employed to either charge or deliver back). Heat exchange can also harvest a lot of energy from the soil.

Efficiency of PV cells is somewhat limited but improvements are made all the time, and large area/fields can still generate a lot of power even with higher latitudes/cloudy/night/etc. conditions. An industrialized country like Germany already has a number of days a year on which they produce a surplus of green energy that they can sell to neighboring countries. And more electricity efficient devices (e.g. LED, more miniaturized chips, etc.) lower the required amounts of electricity, so reducing the need for energy is another factor.

The difficulty with nuclear power is the risk involved. Risk is the likelihood of failure (which is fairly low), multiplied by the cost of failure (which is extremely high). Maybe alternatives based on Hydrogen power could proof to be better solutions (water is an abundant fuel source, and water as an exhaust product is not that bad).

Furthermore, I don't think we will ever be able to get away from some type of liquid fuel source, whatever that may be.

That's not a problem if the use is sporadic.

Batteries in cars take to long to charge for most to feel comfortable, not to mention heavy machinery will never be able to operate like that anyway.

Rapid charging has improved a lot, but I do not think that's the best solution because it reduces the useful life of batteries (unless new kinds are developed). Exchanging/swapping batteries could be more productive.

Bio-diesel is a great alternative, however it is more expensive to produce and has less energy then petroleum based diesel, so once again I don't see it taking off right away.

Bio-fuel tends to cannibalize food resources, which will become an increasingly big problem. I do not see that as a good solution. Algea are a huge potential source for the production of oil, but I'm weary with man tinkering further with the oceans (besides burning of oil is not sustainable). Our track record with managing the oceans isn't stellar, and that while the oceans could become the major foodsource of the future.

Cheers,
Bart

[BobDavid]

Speaking of centralized production and distribution of electricity, our current model is based on an early 20th century paradigm.

Delivering electricity over high tension wires is inefficient. The loss is quantifiable and significant. There are other alternatives such as micro generation. Face it, the "grid" as it functions today is vulnerable--whether to terrorism, cyber attacks, or a faulty transformer, the risks are undeniable.

[Hans Kruse]

Rapid charging has improved a lot, but I do not think that's the best solution because it reduces the useful life of batteries (unless new kinds are developed). Exchanging/swapping batteries could be more productive.

Bart,

Tesla has batteries that are expected to last 10-15 years at least. Statistics gathered from current vehicles indicates that at 500.000 miles the battery capacity will still be around 80% of the capacity as new. You only need to wait for charging on long distance travel. At home you charge the car which means you never even have to visit a gas station, so actually time gained instead. On long distance travelling you will need to charge every 2.5-3 hours of driving and wait for about 30-40 minutes before continuing. That's with the current chargers. It is expected that the charging time will go down to about 15 minutes in such case. So roughly the time it takes to go via the bathroom and have a cup of coffee. Battery swap is no longer discussed for EV's. This is a thing of the past. Tesla did offer this back in 2013 and customers did not use it as they did not need it due to the superchargers that Tesla offer.

Btw. I think you would find it interesting to see this talk about batteries, how they are tested and improvements https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxP0Cu00sZs . Jeff Dahn now is working together with Tesla researching battery technonology. With the Tesla Gigafactory we are seeing the first big steps in improving the battery tech in price per Kwh. There is an enormous research going on in this area.

[JoeKitchen]

Bart, I do agree with many of the points, however I find it hard to believe that batteries will get close to the storage capacity we would need any time soon. 

That means we need a source of electricity that is steady and consistent.  Increased efficiencies in products will help.  However if we start to rely completely on electricity, we will need to start using electric heat, which is notoriously inefficient and could off set any gains elsewhere. 

Hydrogen could be a good source, but the most efficient way to produce hydrogen uses a large amount of fossil fuels, so it does not really decrease the use of fossil fuels.  Not to mention, the amount of energy you need to produce hydrogen is more then what you get out of using it. 

Nuclear is risky, but it seems to be the only power source that is consistent, does not rely on fossil fuels, and produces more energy then what goes into producing it. 

On the liquid fuel source, I just don't think it will ever go away.  Construction and heavy equipment will never be able to run off of electricity.  The batteries that would be required would be too large and heavy, and running wires to vehicles on a site would never work. 

Producing fuel from food sources is crazy, especially considering the reason we can produce so much food is because petroleum based fertilizers, which are used most often, give the ground so much nutrients.  Once we start to ween off of oil, food production will decrease as well.  So we will need to look at things that produce a large amount of oil to harvest with a small amount of investment in energy.  Algae seems to be the only option.  Sawgrass can work too, but harvesting requires more energy. 

Last, and one thing everyone always forgets about, are pharmaceuticals.  Many drugs come from petroleum products, or use a large amount of energy to produce them.  Take away petroleum, and you need a new energy source to not only continue production, but to manufacture the lost products that were harvested and used from petroleum.