Global warming: not a question of science but political influence - Page 2

Six days and nothing. I didn't think there was anything to the conspiracy theory I was expected to believe.

Unfortunately, Snaieke, when all you give us to go on is "I read it on the internet somewhere, but trust me, y'all are nuts," it's a little hard to take you seriously, let alone attempt some sort of reasonable discourse.

Don't worry, Al's on the case

(Fortune Magazine) -- It's lunchtime on Sand Hill Road, and Al Gore wants answers. "How does the efficiency decline with latitude?" he asks. "What size community could be served by one plant? If a manufacturer like GE wanted to make smaller turbines, would the technology support a smaller scale?"

We're sitting in the giant conference room at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where the partners hold their weekly meetings. After loading his plate with Chinese food from a buffet, Gore is firing detailed questions at the management team of Ausra, a Kleiner-backed company in Palo Alto whose technology uses mirrors the width of a flatbed truck that focus the sun's energy to generate electricity.

The rest HERE

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/11/news...ion=2007111208

Just wait, people like Snaieke will use that article to try to smear Al as having spent the past twenty-five years of his life manufacturing global warming claims just so he can try to profit from it. Just wait.

I just watched Who Killed The Electric Car? and I liked it a lot. (spoiler: it was the political influence!) While the EV1's original battery was good enough for most typical uses, the car originally only ran 60 mpc and took 4 hours to reach full charge. Not as flexible as gas engines, but certainly not a dealbraker for many consumers. Also, the car was admittedly tiny and geeky. Still, the upside was and still is revolutionary. If given the chance, the EV1 would have flourished. Of course the marketing utterly failed.

Nowadays, battery tech is much better and plug-in hybrids are so obviously the way to move ahead. All the forces can't align against progress (and $4 gas) forever.

The film (and also what I've heard from a bunch of people) is that biodiesel is the best straight-out replacement for petroleum. Much cleaner burning than any other fossil fuel, and it takes less energy to refine. Hydrogen is far enough away from practicality to almost be science fiction. Conversion to a biodiesel economy is possible right now as long as gas stations started carrying it.

You know, I had a long post I just erased. I apparently left out a detail in my last post and I didn't see anything worth commenting on.

My knowledge on global warming isn't based on information read on the internet, I'm sure the information is out there however it's like trying to find a needle in a needle factory. No matter how you search, you'll find needles.

Try to find someone who is a climatologist, oceanographer, meteorologist, whatever and strike up a conversation in person. Anyone you talk to over the internet will be less than forthcoming about information for fear of repercussions. Also you'll doubt their authenticity without meeting them in person. Anyone can say they're xxx and have xxx degrees it's another thing to meet face to face, plus you can see their sources in person.

As to YT's post, as I said, I don't read global warming related information on the internet, it's really hard to verify pixels on a screen.

As to Seabass Inna Bun, you find me those core samples and how they were entered into the modeling computer?

OK, How about an easier one. What is the global temperature as of the time you reply to this post and how was that number created?

Aren't you the same guy who posted a link to James Inhofe's "report" that cited a bunch of "meteorologists, climatologists, and oceanographers" as doubting global warming, despite the fact that many of them weren't meteorologists, climatologists, and oceanographers?

The problem with biodiesel of course is not converting gas stations, but that it doesn't scale to meet our energy needs, yet. We don't even have enough land in this country to produce enough biodiesel (event if we stopped producing food) to replace oil. From what I've read, algae is supposed to reduce the amount of land problem significantly but there is still a lot of technology to be developed in order to get there.

There's also potential negative impact on farmers, pollution unique to the production of biodiesel , etc.

Again, interesting energy source, but still a lot of work to do before it can really replace current methods. Like most alt. energy sources, the problem is one of scale.

In my job I speak to many scientists due to working with the (quite large) local university. As a rule, the closer their fields of study are to the subject the more concerned they are.

I never said petroleum was going anywhere anytime soon. And it won't, at least for another 20 years. There are millions of cars out there and I don't expect them to disappear. This is about offering a viable choice to consumers right now. Making the fuel is easy, the refueling infrastructure is in place, and basically any car can be retrofitted to accept biodiesel, allowing auto manufacturers to sell new, biodiesel-ready cars. Obviously the economics of scale will dictate the speed in which this becomes widespread, but the hurdles are much lower than hydrogen, for example. Even ethanol.

Fear of repercussions? See their sources in person?

You're a lunatic.

Yes, this is more feasible than hydrogen at this point, but without working the problems of scale, the cost and the technological hurdles yet to be solved it doesn't solve anything to release it right now to consumers unless they're going to make their own biodiesel (which would be so few people no sane manufacturer will cater to them).

Heck, we have a guy at our work who built his own electric car, so there's a few people like that. Too bad they're not enough of them to make any impact whatsoever. In the case of his electric car, the benefits to the environment are questionable though ... since battery charging and using is very inefficient and he probably gets his electricity from a coal plant.

On the energy front I really don't understand why there isn't at least a Manhattan Project scale effort in perfecting nuclear fusion. I can't claim great expertise in the field but as far as I know it's feasible, has solid science behind it and represents practically unlimited power for ever and for free. It really baffles me.

Because there's no threat to those in power today. The Manhattan project was necessary to ensure WWII ended well for the US. By the time global warming destroys the environment, those in charge now will either be dead or safe in their moonbases.

The reason there is none is because none is needed. The last thing we need is a project of that sized managed by today's DOE. Plus the industry and academia are already coming up with a large amount of alternative energy source (or alternative transport) technologies on it's own.

Incentives, grants, tax breaks, yes that would help. Also sane legislation that encourages the industry to take even more risks and push harder thus justifying the money spent in R&D for these efforts would be helpful.

Note that a lot of this research has been going on, funded by government (remember that a lot of this research $$$ also comes from our huge defense budget) and corporations for over 5 decades. It's not like people just were interested in this now. The problem is extremely hard, and there's that whole problem with these pesky "laws of thermodynamics" which we can't seem to get overruled.

No. You made the claims, you back them up. Prove this nonsense about bribery, please. Who was bribed? Who bribed them? Were the research assistants bribed as well? What about the anonymous peer review board and the editors of the journals? They'll have to be bribed as well.

Your conspiracy theory doesn't hold up. You'll have to come up with a new way to poison the well because you find the facts politically inconvenient. And I'm sort of at a loss as to why you're turning to me as an authority on current weather systems. Unlike yourself, I claim no expertise or special knowledge in this field.

You fail yet again to realize, it isn't political. This is a matter of science and data, math and methodology.

The question was a trick question, there is no such thing as a "global temperature" to be found. There is not only a battle between man-made global warming vs. natural; there is a very real debate as to how global temperature is calculated. How do you calculate the entire temperature of the globe? Do you base this off of atmospheric, surface, sea temperature etc.. etc.. Which hemisphere do you base the readings off of as finding historical data from various hemispheres is next to impossible and in excluding those figures does that discredit the use of the term "global"?.

Also, remember, when something is stated as "peer review" that doesn't equated to the entire findings to have been reviewed, it could have been one-quarter worth of findings, or as little as one piece of information.

I've already stated my stance in a previous post, to recap; Alternative fuels are good. Giving money to research famine, cleaner water supplies and world hunger, also good! Reread the post for the rest.

In closing, find the stories from retired scientists your own damn self, my job isn't to convince you, you've already gone to the Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming and you've been baptized in the melted glacial waters.
Anything I go out and try to find on the internet and link will most certainly be discarded or attempted to be discredited by you, so why should I waste my valuable time, we'll just cut to the chase and you can say "bullshit" now and put your hands over your eyes and sing "LaLaLa". You're the one who believes mankind is doomed and the world is going to come to an end because man has emitted gases into the atmosphere thus causing a warming without any concrete scientific proof provided to validate that claim, look up the words "causation" and "correlation". If you're too lazy to go out and find information for yours and your families well being, why should I do it for you?

why?

Because you're trying to prove a point, so it follows you should ... er ... prove it. Cite sources, and let people judge their value, but you can't just throw claims around and expect people to say amen.

Actually, a fusion reactor is being built (unless you were thinking cold fusion, which is only theoretical).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4629239.stm

As for biodiesel, there isn't enough material to make it, although you could mix it in as an additive. 100% biodiesel, no...25% biodiesel? Alot better than nothing. The best immediate solution, I think, is a plug-in hybrid. Cars have been built that can charge within a couple of hours for a dollar or two of electricity and can travel 60 miles before the batteries go flat. Use a diesel engine rather than gas and have, I dunno, 25% of it be biodiesel. How much cleaner would that be? How much cheaper for all of us? The plants that deliver the electricity to your house can be clean...Nuclear, hydro-electric, solar, wind. You'd still need coal and oil, but alot less. Battery technology is constantly improving: a cordless drill company, I think it was Makita, introduced a battery that recharges in a few minutes. That can eventually tranlate into fast-charging car batteries.

And Snaiek, as for global warming being a myth, what are you, a child? There's enough evidence out there to see with your own eyes, never mind scientists who take measurements. How long have thermometers existed? 125 years or so? The 10 hottest years on record have been in the last 12-15 years. I've seen satellite photos of Antarctica and the Arctic taken over a period of 40 years. They showed pictures taken at the same time of year and there's half the ice there was before.
There are mountains that have been perpetually covered in ice year round for as long as people remember. Alot of these mountain ice has completely melted in the last few years.
An ice shelf the size of fucking Connecticut is falling into the ocean
http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogs...-close-to.html

As for me, last week I went for a walk in short pants and a t-shirt. I live in eastern Canada. I'll be 37 next month and I've never EVER seen it warm enough to be able to do that before mid-May at the earliest.

25% is still a lot based on our transportation related energy consumption. That is a lot of land and a lot of food being used for this purpose. So the challenges there are the physical area to produce this energy and the law of unintended consequences as I mentioned before. The impact to the world supply could also be significant, to the point were you already have a lot of people against this idea and calling it a potential crime against humanity against poor nations.

Wind is great, but very unreliable and has some land/area problems too. However, there's are a lot of wind mill being bought in the US so wind is a reality today (not only in Europe anymore). Solar still needs tons of work to make a dent, so it is hard to do a lot less "coal and oil" at this point.

As for fast charging batteries, the problem with them usually is that they significantly shorten battery life and they are super inefficient. I see a low tech version of this every time I charge my RC plane with my fast chargers, they get pretty hot.

More significant solutions maybe be "less sexy" but more achievable and immediate. The real problem here is that we consume too much energy folks, so the most obvious answer is that we have to lower our consumption. Here is where the government has also the best chance to step in. Because our energy consumption is so high, it is very difficult to implement a lot of these solutions, so we have to lower our energy usage significantly and maximize efficiency.

From a tech point of view, I think one of the things you are all going to see is utilities trying to solve the energy loss/inefficiencies in the grid. There is some in the transmission and additional loss in distribution. That is, on the distribution side, there is a good chunk of energy being lost going from the transformer at the substation to your home. Optimizing this is a must and you can see companies building technology to solve this. It is, at last, coming together.

On the usage side, aside from changing habits, there are technologies to make the energy usage inside your house more efficient, and things like better (OLED) technology that can replace the light bulb will affect things.

So there's a lot of technology on this side of the problem that can be used to lower our monstrous consumption and energy waste, but there is a lot of behavior that has to change and that's really the hard thing at the end of the day.

Your RC battery probably isn't state of the art.... Give it a couple of years: the advancements they're making are pretty significant.

As for wind not being reliable...get your own wind turbine with deep cyccle marine batteries for when there isn't much wind. That and solar together can get you off the grid, or better yet, stay connected and feed the extra juice you make back to the grid.

I agree with you on making stuff more efficient, though. Incandescent bulbs are gonna be outlawed here in 3 years. What about the States?

Yeah I know an RC battery and rapid charger are nowhere near state of the art, I was just highlighting the loss of energy in the whole process. Loss of energy from transmission to the distribution then additional loss in charging and spending that energy from the battery. Loss, loss, loss. That's why as you pointed out you have to back that up at the energy production site, people often miss this very important point because if they way you get your energy is very inefficient you can exacerbate the problem. Rapid charge adds that complexity to it (making it even less efficient) but as you point there's work going into this of course.

I'm mainly talking about wind on the generation side, not on the consumer end. For a lot of the US private generation is waaaaaaaaay into the future. No way to efficiently have wind mills for every house here in suburbia.

The incandescent light bulb will be outlawed in California by the year 2012 I believe. I don't think there's any federal law or much states that have similar measures. Again, this is the type of thing the government can do.

At least we're close to efficient OLED lighthing ... on this side, I have seen the state of the art, but can't talk about it.

I'm interested in the potential for a large-scale return to sail in oceanic cargo operations. Anyone know if any serious research or work has been done on this?

Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm asking you to do my homework for me. I'm a bad man.

No, you're allowed to ask questions and ask for confirmation. You're just not allowed to make wild claims and then refuse to back them up with evidence or citations.

I hear you, yt....

You come up with a simple, safe solution on your own and all kinds of government types will show up at your door and say "no no".... mustn't upset the powers above.

I know how to build a wind turbine that can produce 10% of my energy needs (average North American home) in 10mph winds for $300. I'd like to make a business of it if I could, but I'll either get a fine or a bullet in the head.

This is absolutely false. I don't fail to realize anything. I've argued in favour of the scientific method from the beginning. You've referenced political thinktanks.

You claimed it was a matter of scientists taking bribes! Okay, show me.

Whatever. This conspiracy of yours?

Yeah. Articles are published after a cursory glance. Sure.

Oh, spare me.

If scientific results have been fixed on a massive scale like you claim, I'd like to know about it. It's a big deal.

I believe no such things.

I know what those words mean, thanks. I'm sorry to say the evidence in favour of anthropogenic causes is overwhelming. Those arguing otherwise stubbornly refuse to put their money where their mouths are and attempt real refutations. But judging from your argument about people making false claims about their qualifications over the internet, it's clear you have no idea how the scientific community works at all, maybe you think their reluctance makes sense. Well, it doesn't. Anyway there's no doubt in my mind a good number of climatologists and the like would love to be proven wrong.

Are you being less than forthcoming about information for fear of repercussions?

To power your whole home it will be a significant investment, what is preventing you from doing this in the first place?

I think it will become so, with time. Thing is, satellite tv is a snap and there's a huge demand. They're still working on the hyperefficient solar cell. That said, I think CA is way ahead of the rest of the country in this regard.

YT

Have you looked into tax credits? Pretty sure your state would reward you with some if you got solar panels.

Besides, what's your average monthly power bill? $300 or so? Those panels would be paid off in 6 years or so...

Here's a new hybrid:

If you looking to "green" your home, photovoltaic isn't the easiest or most cost efficient step you can take. This is kind of in my line of work, and to the best of my knowledge — which is geographically limited — the simple payback on PV's is longish.* Have you looked at reducing bills with lower-tech options such as solar hot water, geoexchange cooling, or better ininsulation? Or for that matter, what's on your roof? Moving around a few windows to compliment seasonal insolation, and the strategic placement of shade plants can be a cheap way of improving air-conditioning bills.

That way, when you do get a PV system, or a wind turbine, your low net energy consumption means you actually do put something back into the grid.


*Moreover, from a contractors perspective, because the installation of a PV system might involve significant renovation of the dwelling, you may be aksed — quite reasonably — to consider replacing various pre-existing systems in conjunction to the installation. For example, if a PV system is roof mounted, you may also be looking at a new roof.

I don't buy some of the points in your argument. First of all, it seems to be dependent on the fact that there is no earthly way we can fold-in a slowly expanding biodiesel market into the current system. That there isn't enough to even support a small but growing plug-in hybrid market. Also, who says that we have to produce all the biodiesel? Can't we also purchase some from exporting countries? (Perhaps places much close and friendlier than the middle east, since just about anybody can grow biodiesel.) Not that we would need to purchase all that much fuel if we keep its use to plug-in hybrids and also the tiny percentage of retrofitted vehicles.

That way, we can focus our attention on the other very real problem you mention of fixing the main power sources and grids, and making those as renewable and efficient as possible, instead of getting stalled by fixating on the car issue. Its fairly self evident that revolutionizing the main power infrastructure and getting our car culture to revolve around that as much as possible is a more holistic way of solving all of the greater energy issues. I mean, its not like we can avoid solving that problem anyways, so the argument that the plug-in hybrid market would be less "green" doesn't necessarily have to be.

I don't disagree with that, my point is that any solution that uses electricity in cars is not an environmental solution when, as you said, you don't work on the env. problems on the generation side of the grid. Electricity in this case, is just a way to deliver energy to you, not an alternative green energy if you have mostly coal feeding it to you. And again, people often forget the amount of loss just getting that from the turbine, to your substation, to the transformer to your house. Lots of electricity is lost there, but lots of work is being done in that area.

In other words, electric car solutions are great for energy independence now, but I often see them being touted as very green ... when with the infrastructure we have today they will turn out not to be (and in some cases could be worse).

I thought I read today that the wind and solar tax credits were ending this year (I imagine these are federal).

It's the same sort of pressure from lobbyists that keeps us under the boot of the health insurance industry and away from a universal health care system comparable to the rest of the western world, when various polls indicate that a majority of Americans are, at the very least, receptive to the idea - and that doctors now favor it. They've got too much political clout and too much advertising power to spout their propaganda (like the myth of corn ethanol, which barely makes up for the amount of fossil fuels needed to produce it and has helped cause the grain riots of late to boot. Compare it to sugarcane ethanol, currently being produced in Brazil I believe, which is far more efficient in terms of the ratio of units produced:units of fossil fuels used.)

It's really the only explanation I can think of for why the government hasn't taken the effort to make alternative energy sources for both electricity and automobiles more affordable for private industry (and private citizenry) and less restricted than traditional fossil fuels.

If that's the case, do you remember hearing about any kind of congressional plan to renew them?