Imagine a group of 100 fisherman faced with declining stocks and worried about the sustainability of their resource and their livelihoods. One of them works out that the total sustainable catch is about 20% of what everyone is catching now (with some uncertainty of course) but that if current trends of increasing catches (about 2% a year) continue the resource would be depleted in short order. Faced with that prospect, the fishermen gather to decide what to do. The problem is made more complicated because some groups of fishermen are much more efficient than the others. The top 5 catchers, catch 20% of the fish, and the top 20 catch almost 75% of the fish. Meanwhile the least efficient 50 catch only 10% of the fish and barely subsist. Clearly, fairness demands that the top catchers lead the way in moving towards a more sustainable future.
The top 5 do start discussing how to manage the transition. They realise that the continued growth in catches – driven by improved technology and increasing effort – is not sustainable, and make a plan to reduce their catch by 80% over a number of years. But there is opposition – manufacturers of fishing boats, tackle and fish processing plants are worried that this would imply less sales for them in the short term. Strangely, they don’t seem worried that a complete collapse of the fishery would mean no sales at all – preferring to think that the science can’t possibly be correct and that everything will be fine. These manufacturers set up a number of organisations to advocate against any decreases in catch sizes – with catchy names like the Fisherfolk for Sound Science, and Friends of Fish. They then hire people who own an Excel spreadsheet program do “science” for them – and why not? They live after all in a free society.
After spending much energy and money on trying to undermine the science – with claims that the pond is much deeper than it looks, that the fish are just hiding, that the records of fish catches were contaminated by being done near a supermarket – the continued declining stocks and smaller and smaller fish make it harder and harder to sound convincing. So, in a switch of tactics so fast it would impress Najinsky, the manufacturers’ lobby suddenly decides to accept all that science and declares that the ‘fish are hiding’ crowd are just fringe elements. No, they said, we want to help with this transition, but …. we need to be sure that the plans will make sense. So they ask their spreadsheet-wielding “advocacy scientists” to calculate exactly what would happen if the top 5 (and only the top 5) did cut their catches by 80%, but meanwhile everyone else kept increasing their catch at the current (unsustainable rate). Well, the answers were shocking – the total catch would be initially still be 84% of what it is now and would soon catch up with current levels. In fact, the exact same techniques that were used to project the fishery collapse imply that this would only delay the collapse by a few years! and what would be the point of that?
The fact that the other top fishermen are discussing very similar cuts and that the fisherfolk council was trying to coordinate these actions to minimise the problems that might emerge, are of course ignored and the cry goes out that nothing can be done. In reality of course, the correct lesson to draw is that everything must be done.
In case you think that no-one would be so stupid as to think this kind of analysis has any validity, I would ask that you look up the history of the Newfoundland cod fishery. It is indeed a tragedy.
And the connection to climate? Here.
I’ll finish with a quotation attributed to Edmund Burke, one the founders of the original conservative movement:
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
See here for a much better picture of what coordinated action could achieve.
Jim Bullis, Doug, et al: A question kinda on topic: T. Boone Pickin’s plan is not to build wind farms to recharge electric (more or less) vehicles, but to free up natural gas from electricity generation to power converted ICE vehicles with LNG. Attacking potential global warming is #2 of his goals; using (his?) natural gas to reduce dependency on foreign oil is #1. What’s the upside and downside in your opinions?
Open question: I too have seen conflicting reports on Chernobyl from total disaster to some that said for example that other than immediate sickness and death, the cancer rate was no where near what the Russians anticipated (and relocated thousands because of it) and not epidemiologically significant (or barely so). In any case I assume nuclear power has some difficulties, a few maybe “dangerous.”
I’m not sure if I’m a proponent or an antagonist for nuclear power, though I think it possesses clear benefits, at least in the short term. My curiosity question is why the aginers absolutely reject the viable solutions and work-arounds to the dangers and difficulties of implementing nuclear power, but dismiss with a simple wave of a hand the difficulties and define away the current uncertainties with implementing things like wind and solar? Almost like, ‘no problem,’ ‘done deal,’ ‘ready to go,’ ‘just place a web order and charge it to AmEx.’ Some sound like they would clearly favor global warming over nuclear power.
750 was written by someone not me (who wrote 749).
Jim Bullis, Miastrada Co. Says (18 mai 2009 at 7:23 PM):
“(1) I do not have a Hummer.”
Fair enough, since I don’t have a Lotus :-) It was an example, that’s all. Try to focus on the relevant part – a 2000 pound car with a small frontal area and low Cd is likely to be more efficient than something weighing 6000 pounds, and with aerodynamics that make a barn door look streamlined.
MikeN, you should spend less time at WUWT. Boston didn’t manage sea level rise just fine. Boston reclaimed shallow waters such as the Back Bay by dumping fill into it, then built on it. This provides a positive economic benefit (ignoring environmental issues). Coping with sea level rise is something else altogether because the “stuff” that needs protecting, or needs to be moved, are high-value buildings and infrastructure, not empty shallow waters available for free (in the context of the time when it was done).
That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen at WUWT, equating the filling of shallow waters with the protection and/or relocation of (say) downtown Boston.
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) Says (19 mai 2009 at 12:14 AM):
“Please don’t say that the net improvement is that wildlife and really poor people are residing in the exclusion zone.”
Why should I not say this? It is exactly what I meant – aside from the bit about “really poor people”, which I suppose depends on one’s definition of poverty.
“A friend of mine was in Chernobyl when the accident happened, most of her friends are dead from cancer already.”
This seems to be a case of straining at gnats but swallowing camels, given for instance the typical European attitude towards smoking & the effects of second-hand tobacco smoke. So why not try this: find the most generous estimates of the number of cancers thought to have been caused by the Chernobyl accident. Compare them to the number of smoking caused cancers for the same period. Then explain why so many people are opposed to the one, but not the other.
(When I lived in Europe, I would sometimes encounter people who’d talk about the dangers of nuclear power &c while puffing away. In retrospect I find this amusing; at the time I was only concerned with getting away from their fumes.)
Barton writes:
There’s even evidence that the region is a net wildlife sink:
Radiation-induced illnesses continue to appear:
In addition, people often forget the fate of the million “rectifiers” who were shipped to the Chernobyl site to clean up. Most received lifetime doses of radiation in a few minutes. Subsequent claims of radiation-induced illnesses were dismissed by the Soviet Union, and their fates remain largely unknown. For grim details, see Chernousenko, Chernobyl: Insight from the Inside.
re 752. Animals are under threat from humans. They die quite a bit.
The death rate from deformities (a deformed animal is not going to last long) is such that they don’t appear often.
Both cases are things we humans will not accept amongst ourselves.
Er, Chernobyl ‘not a wildlife haven’
SecularAnimist Says (19 mai 2009 at 6:34 AM):
“Perhaps you would like to explain to us how uranium mining is a “net improvement” to sensitive desert ecosystems.”
First, let’s (once again) try to clear up a point about “sensitive desert ecosystems”. It’s not the fact that they’re deserts that matters: forests, grasslands, or whatever, what matters is that they’re WILD lands.
Then what you need to do is to add up the total surface area affected, not forgetting to include the surface area impacted by mining all the materials that go into making solar cells or wind turbines, and compare.
James wrote: “First, let’s (once again) try to clear up a point about ‘sensitive desert ecosystems’. It’s not the fact that they’re deserts that matters: forests, grasslands, or whatever, what matters is that they’re WILD lands.”
You are absolutely, categorically opposed to building ANY solar thermal power plants on “wild” desert lands.
Are you also absolutely, categorically opposed to ANY uranium mining on “wild” desert lands?
If not why not?
And if you are opposed to uranium mining on “wild” desert lands, then how do you propose to fuel the hundreds of new nuclear reactors that you want to build in the USA alone?
And just to clear up a point, I am specifically talking about deserts because it so happens that deserts are where people are proposing to build solar thermal power plants, and deserts are also where people are proposing vastly expanded uranium mining.
Rod B @ 752:
Well, it pretty much is a done deal and you pretty much can place a web order and charge it on your AmEx card, though my supplier may prefer that you use a card with a lower handling fee. Or pay by check. I think he takes checks. I’d be happy to handle the site survey and installation, but I don’t have all of my tax paperwork done and I’m not sure I can get a licensed electrician and the appropriate construction trades out to your house. Let me know — I’ll see what I can do to fix you right up.
When I talk about the state of the technology, I don’t avoid the details because I’m into hand waving, I avoid them because they are currently somewhere in the “not yet able to have ‘Patent Pending’ stamped on them.” stage of business development. I assure you that once they are published on the US PTO website, I’ll be more than happy to discuss them and explain why deploying those technologies (as well as ones I’m aware of that were invented by others) completely removes the 20% barrier that had existed 7 or 8 years ago. The barrier is GONE. It has left the building. It is an ex-barrier.
What I understand on the generating side of the industry is that the generators now understand how disruptive renewable energy is going to be. So long as capital can be recovered long term (and time is a very good friend to the patient), the renewable generators will always be able to undercut the non-renewable guys on price. I have another 5 or 6 KWH to produce today — if I had a big enough array to play with the big boys, I could undercut all of them on price because the sun isn’t costing me anything to use. I either produce those 5 or 6KWH or they are gone. So, I’m going to produce them and I’m going to sell them (I’m actually going to do laundry and recharge my motorcyle …) And they know it, and they are PISSED, and they are out spreading lies about how evil renewables are because folks like me are gunning for their business.
Re: comment 744
Yes, I intend to do a review of the book when i have finished.
It’s good so far (still on chapter 1).
Barton Paul Levenson Says (19 mai 2009 at 6:02 AM):
“The wildlife the pro-nuclear psychos keep lauding is there because the humans who usually wipe it out are afraid to go near the plant…”
You’re trying to use this as an argument against my position. when in fact it’s exactly the point I’ve been trying to make all along? That whatever the effects of the Chernobyl accident may have been, they are less bad for the wildlife than merely living with the previous human population.
“…there’s no evidence–zero–that that lush wildlife is especially healthy.”
Humm… You know, I just can’t follow the logic there. Perhaps you’d care to explain how e.g. killing off a large fraction of that wildlife would be healthier.
“You just don’t want to admit that there are any serious problems with nuclear power. Like every pro-nuclear crackpot on the internet, your approach is not “the problems are controllable,” but rather, “There are no problems.””
No, my position is hardly as absolute as you try to make out. It’s that when you make a fair attempt at adding up all the problems, you find that nuclear power is LESS BAD than most of the more popular alternatives.
I will concede that there’s a subjective factor in the values one assigns to things. I happen to place a higher value on having “barren” deserts, sparsely-populated forests, and the ecosystems that go along with them, than on the continued ability of urbanites to run their SUVs & big-screen TVs.
#740 Pete:
“…until we throw away the mantra of progress and prosperity through growth (now called sustainable growth I believe) and adopt one of steady state economics then we will be looking down the barrel of a less than happy future.”
True enough, and this circles back to what EL said about full integration.
We’ve developed yet another bad habit while filling what we’ve been fooled into thinking is boundless empty space on Earth. We imagine that any of us can amass a certain amount of capital, invest it in “the market” (of whatever kind) then sit back and reap endless rewards, forever, without doing any commensurate work.
In the world of physics this sort of fantasy is called “perpetual motion” and does not actually perform as we’d like. Physicists long ago deduced that this is actually impossible in the material world, economists apparently have not, or don’t want to admit it. More energy from “somewhere” is required to keep things moving. In economics we call that energy input “growth” and it does indeed imply growing markets and hence growing demand, meaning either a few of us endlessly expand our consumption or we make more people and disperse the increased consumption. Either way you slice it, it does not scale in the long term.
Another little challenge to surmount. We’re murdering ourselves with our 401K plans. Oops.
#751 RodB”
“T. Boone Pickin’s plan is not to build wind farms to recharge electric (more or less) vehicles, but to free up natural gas from electricity generation to power converted ICE vehicles with LNG. Attacking potential global warming is #2 of his goals; using (his?) natural gas to reduce dependency on foreign oil is #1. What’s the upside and downside in your opinions?”
One helpful thing to remember is, the things you mention are not really T. Boone Pickens’ main objective. The main plan -behind- these details is for T. Boone Pickens to make money. That’s not to say he’s not slightly motivated by altruism, just that his altruism rides in the trunk, hogtied and gagged with duct tape.
Diverting natural gas from electrical generation to vehicle motive power will have a horrible effect on the overall efficiency of the use of the gas. If Pickens’ plan is to use wind to recharge cars that’s a much better idea. Assuming we accept that we absolutely must behave as though we’re still living in the 19th century and find it irresistible to burn every last scrap of hydrocarbons we can clutch in our thoughtless hands, that is.
Our natural gas resource is paltry even viewed through the rose tinted glasses of natural gas boosters. Scroll up the thread and you can see the statistics I pulled from the DOE natural gas fanboy assessment as well as cheerleader naturalgas.org. I rounded the numbers up, by the way.
Wind farms: great. Reduce foreign oil dependency: fantasy. Reduce CO2 emissions by burning natural gas: what do you think?
#760 James:
“It’s not the fact that they’re deserts that matters: forests, grasslands, or whatever, what matters is that they’re WILD lands.”
And what about when they’re not? Since you’re asserting that depredation of intact ecosystems is necessary for the purpose of industrialized solar power capture, how about some statistics on how many square miles we have of previously altered land?
“Then what you need to do is to add up the total surface area affected, not forgetting to include the surface area impacted by mining all the materials that go into making solar cells or wind turbines, and compare.”
Sand. Rare-earth metals. Copper. A number of other things, all of which are necessary for any energy plan. And of course- even as we bicker here- increasingly polymers which we produce using an existing extraction and and refinery infrastructure which could be vastly downsized if the raw materials were diverted from archaic burning into the production of organic photocells.
James, 264, this is the first time you’ve done anything that could indicate you aren’t dead set against any solution that isn’t nuclear, so please forgive if we don’t really see it that way.
#751 Rod B
You are absolutely correct that this is what Pickins says, but he goes on to say, “Natural gas is plentiful and its ours.”
You also assess correctly that his top priority is to reduce dependence on foreign oil. I see very little to indicate global warming is even on his list of concerns. Other powerful folks seem to think like this, Andy Grove being the main example. Andy Grove promotes putting batteries in the “most fuel inefficient vehicles” to make them plug-ins to get “energy resiliency.” It is my reading of the GM plan by Savagian from about a year ago that shows that same intent. It seems that this crowd has their eye on US coal reserves.
But back to natural gas, I really do not know whether there is sufficient natural gas that would enable much expansion of the use of that fuel without causing a real crisis in that market.
#737 Doug Bostrom
You say, “—– it’s worth mentioning that combined cycle natural gas generating plants are capable of something like 60% efficiency.”
Reply: Yup, that is what they say. However, natural gas peaking power plants seem to get more like 30%, so the actual average efficiency is a lot lower. I have a lot of confidence that the USA average can be about 42% efficiency depending on how much the combined cycle plants are used. The peaking plants have to be used to cover the big afternoon loads, at least that is the case in California. Calpine was commissioned to build some additional peaking plants fairly recently, not on their own investment, but directly paid for by the State. But the combined cycle plants seem to be more optional. Where the price of natural gas makes it practical, more of these are used. Thus, the average USA efficiency for natural gas plants can and has varied from around 29.8% in 1999 to 42.1% in 2005 which seems like more than can be accounted for by additional installations. From what I can tell, new installations were quite few in wake of the natural gas crisis. Calpine went bankrupt during this time owning a large installed base of quite fine natural gas facilities that were planned when natural gas was $2 or less. (Their annual report is a good resource for understanding these things.)”
You say, “If waste heat is captured for other purposes that figure can increase slightly.”
I reply: If waste heat is completely captured and used as effectively as heat from natural gas that would not have to be burned as a consequence, the efficiency figure can increase by a factor of two or three. That will squeeze a lot more electricity out of natural gas. This is possible on a distributed generation basis that will only sell if we “Throw out most of what Westinghouse and GE taught us about central power plants.”
You say, “The same gas deployed in a massive fleet of automobiles forced to rotate a myriad of redundant parts, retarded by air drag and rolling resistance, steered by friction and recovering only a fraction of available kinetic energy when forced to change velocity and even worse involving wretchedly crude IC engines will quite obviously result in vastly poorer overall efficiency.”
I reply: Yup, you describe the present monstrosity of the automobile. But as I have said elsewhere, “we have to throw out everything Henry Ford taught us about cars, except how to do mass production.” The engine can be quite remarkable. Diesels from Yanmar and Kubota get 35% efficiency. Toyota Prius engines get 38% efficiency. The waste is that we seem unable to recognize and apply these kinds of technologies.
And we also know how to make an enclosure for passengers that cuts the aerodynamic drag coefficient from the automotive industry best at .25 to down around .05 for a simple body and .07 with the effect of wheels added, and we can also do quite nicely with half the frontal area. Though this is a change that is hard to sell, it completely changes the amount of energy required. Oh yes, rolling resistance can be significantly reduced if weight is controlled and tires are used that have proven low rolling resistance.
So maybe we can stop “getting drunk on the hubris.”
It seems to work down to natural gas as a key to some kind of manageable transition over an uncertain period of time. Since I do not believe that natural gas is plentiful without a lot more verification, verification seems like an important place to start. Then, if as I expect, it is necessary to drill more natural gas wells, in a very carefully controlled way, we should figure out how to accommodate this.
#756 Doug Bostrom
Concurring with your general assessment of Pickins, I say, “The thing that will be shifted is money from the public pocket to the Pickins pocket.”
I tend to think that Pickins would prefer natural gas to be used in the transportation market in competition with oil rather than use it in electricity production market in competition with coal. He is happy to take a profit building windmills on public subsidy along the way.
If you want to really get nauseated, you should watch Harry Reid and Boone Pickens swear ‘best friends forever’ like a couple of sixth grade girls. That was at a meeting in front of a lot of liberal cheerleaders in Nevada around Sept. last year.
James, you’re repeatedly posting stock talking points from the industry PR script. Did you know you’re doing that? Where are you getting your information? Have you tried to verify it?
This is PR. It carefully ignores many facts, among them:
— the process of radioactive decay produces new isotopes as time goes on (e.g. Americium in the Chernobyl area, which is continuing to increase; it’s produced in the decay chain*).
— bioaccumulation
— life moves across boundaries carrying radioisotopes along with it.
The PR line you keep posting has been studied. It’s fascinating to the anthropologists and sociologists; the study of these tactics by various industry groups is worth looking into:
“… efforts to reinscript specific radioactive
environments as ecological ‘improvements’ … ”
…
“… the DOE now assumes responsibility for preserving the southwestern flycatcher and the peregrine falcon in northern New Mexico. In doing so, the DOE attempts to expand retroactively its Cold War mission from nuclear deterrence to environmental protection. This ideological project to link the “national security” offered by the atomic bomb during the Cold War to sustaining the biodiversity of U.S. territories …”
…
” … … their new status is primarily a bureaucratic one and does not address the mobility of animals, ecosystems, and radionuclides between territories identified as wildlife reserves and nuclear production sites….”
…
” … mulberry trees on the Hanford Reservation have been showing increasing amounts of strontium-90 over the last decade …; and the Russian thistle plant has recently created a new kind of environmental hazard: the radioactive tumbleweed ….”
http://anthropology.uchicago.edu/pdfs/mutant_ecologies.pdf
* http://www.springerlink.com/content/76m7267750m52u73/
—————————-
Look into your sources and why you trust them.
RE: 766
Hey Doug,
Sorry, I disagree that the use of LNG for motive fuel as a stop gap is bad. For one, the use of LNG will increase the hydrogen to carbon ratio for a given energy transformation. Secondly, LNG is a proven technology with potential distribution systems already in place and can be created from biomass. Thirdly, the use of LNG can promote the conversion of inefficient IC power plants to more efficient high technology heat engines over time. (The particularly nice thing about LNG is the possibility of ceramic engines running at very high temperatures (ergo higher efficiency) which could actually be used for secondary or co-generation purposes such as a form of a Stirling engine.)
Re: Elsewhere regarding Solar Installations
Hey All,
As a general observation it is always preferable to not use arable land for the purpose of housing or power generation. (The combination of siteing and replacing a roof system with steel trusses with a Solar Panel covering is intriguing.) If you can combine both functions into one you gain both the opportunity to restore arable land to the purpose of carbon sequestration, as well as food generation for as long as human education is lower then the economic demand. (Meaning until the modern education system lifts the economic potential of couples to a self actualization level, without the aid of large families.)
If you look at the US farmland returning to the natural state and being wrestled into homes for the purposes of creating tax bases for growing communities you quickly see the potential problem.
General Thread Observations:
Hey All,
Most of our current societies ills can be placed at the doorstep of tomorrow, as that is where everything is purported to be better. We are counting on growth to offer the opportunity for a better tomorrow. That was the basis of much of what our western society is geared to. Does anyone want to discuss what the future would look like if tomorrow never came? In other words, what if tomorrow were not better, is it possible to make changes, based on the current economic resources, to improve on what we have currently? In short, what can we do today to make things better?
(Sorry for getting more OT Dr. Schmidt, things just seemed to be getting terribly far from the core issue of dealing with the commons and maximizing the potential for all.)
Cheers!
Dave Cooke
climate change, check it out
Hey All,
By the way, we might also consider that most of the technologies of the day can be used together to reduce the need for new or expensive (either economically or environmentally) storage systems. By using a combination of non-combustion technology or low fossilized carbon technology in association with fossilized carbon technology you can reduce the current combustion component dramatically and within a decade.
Cheers!
Dave Cooke
FCHerder, I wasn’t talking about my house; or even yours. I was talking of the country, maybe the world. You could probably replace your driveway, too, with a little time and stuff bought over the internet. But when you redo the Interstate Highway system, let me know. Secondly, coming up with viable design white papers or getting patents in place, while critical to major projects, is 0.0000034% (just a rule-of-thumb) of the effort, uncertainties, and difficulties required for massive mega-projects. Anyhoo, why do the anti nuclear folks fret so over similar issues even though most of the nuclear stuff is old hat and been done many times over?
In all of the posts about siting solar power generation I have not seen mention of the fact that the US, an many other contries, have a tremendous amount of land used for highways. According to Wikipedia, the US Interstate Highway System currently has 46,876 miles (75,440 km) of roadway. Assuming a right-of-way width of 500 feet (150 m) and 100 watts of power per square meter, shading the roadways with PV arrays works out to about 1 TeraWatt of potential electrical energy. Factoring in the state highways, city roads, parking lots, etc brings the potential electrical energy up to around 3 TeraWatts. All without destroying a single desert or acre of farmland.
Before all of the naysayers chime in, yes, I know that PV power is intermittent, I know that this would be a massive and expensive project, and I know that some people would complain that the PV arrays would ruin their suntans. :-) But this is land which is already owned by the government, the ecological damage (and it is considerable) has already been done, and power transmission problems would be minimal.
Siting PV arrays along the highways would not be a panacea, of course, but I feel it is an option we should seriously consider.
#772 I David Cooke,
The limit on high tempertures is the fact that nitrogen is present in the air used for combustion. It is not so important what the fuel is. Nitrogen oxides are the reason diesel engines get cut off at about 35%. Although there are ways to take out NOx after combustion, they can only do so much.
I get very excited about catalytic converters for doing this with diesel engines such as the Blue Tek stuff from Mercedes and the cerium catalyst from Argonne. If these work and are affordable then your expected efficiency improvements from high temperature can come about even with existing metallurgy.
This is the root of the problem with central power plants, because no matter how sophisticated they get, they still have this NOx problem. So they really do not do much better than the much maligned internal combustion engine. Uh well, I mean a well designed internal combustion engine like in the Prius.
The combined cycle natural gas generators are just a cogeneration system where the discharged heat of the first stage engine runs a second stage engine. Even the second stage engine discharges a lot of heat in these systems, but it is so much heat it is hard to make use of it as a full cogeneration system.
Dang, this thing is just addictive. I though I got over this when I quit SmirkingChimp but I guess I’m off the wagon, thud.
#I david:
“Sorry, I disagree that the use of LNG for motive fuel as a stop gap is bad.”
Way less efficient. For a given amount of CO2 introduced into the atmosphere, less useful work is done when burning gas to push little collections of machinery hither and thither, forcing their way through the air while they stop and go, grinding their Victorian metal innards to dust.
“Secondly, LNG is a proven technology with potential distribution systems already in place and can be created from biomass.”
A tiny bit can be made from biomass, compared to what we’re mining. Where’s the biomass collection and fermentation system that will produce 10TCF/year? We’re getting rid of the “proven” part in a pyromaniacal frenzy which will soon leave us with sheepish grins on our faces.
“Thirdly, the use of LNG can promote the conversion of inefficient IC power plants to more efficient high technology heat engines over time.”
Perhaps, but that’s not what Pickens’ plan is. He sees Chevy Silverados with cheap manifold conversions, sporting the usual shocking number of metal bits going back and forth when what we want is something spinning continuosly.
We’re stuck on “disagree”.
Burning liquid, condensing and gaseous hydrocarbons now just means we have to make more “alternative” energy capture systems later, when we suddenly realize we actually do need plastics, etc. We’ll have to rebuild all the molecules we ruined because we were so enamored of watching them combust. A dumb route to carbon sequestration if ever there was one.
“We are counting on growth to offer the opportunity for a better tomorrow.”
Growth, or progress? There’s a difference.
Do you need to apologize for discussing this? It’s all about doing the work of managing the commons, after all.
EL #717, 726, 734 — You suggest that Gavin start a new topic on something like “what are you going to do about global warming?” This just in: only 18% of Americans are “alarmed” about the issue, with another 33% “concerned.” The rest either don’t care or are skeptical. http://www.physorg.com/news161967659.html
Maybe part of the problem is that the alarms have been going off for so long that they are getting ignored. Used to be, when a car alarm went off, people looked up to catch the thief. Now the first thought is: “Another goober.” The example of the placid frog is very apposite. Although the problem is now looking worse than we thought before, public indifference is growing.
Ray Ladbury #746 — Glad we agree about the frog. I looked up Art Rosenfeld, the energy efficiency pioneer, and he is an excellent example of a renowned physicist who got his nails dirty in a good cause. He even served as a California energy commissioner. Wish there were many more like him, to give applied science a boost to solve the climate problem.
Recaptcha: hard diggers — those faithful who have followed this long topic.
My state’s been there, done that.
Germany’s been the most aggressive in doing this, AFAIK.
#756 James
How amazing that someone should make such an ignorant statement as yours from an anonymous position.
Since you think it’s so net positive, I suggest you move to Chernobyl and build a little hut in the forest next to the plant. Then you can eat the radioactive food and animals to survive. I’m sure it would turn out to be a net positive for you. You probably would sit back on your front porch in the evenings and watch the glow of the sunset (or is that the plant?) and then meditate on the slight prickly feeling you get in your skin once and a while; then you can wash down the weird metallic taste of radiation that you sometimes notice with a nice cool beer.
Later you can have dinner and eat some of the radioactive vegetables and maybe enjoy a radioactive bird you recently shot. Don’t worry about side effects, that will take some time to really become a problem.
Heck, if your not feeling, and seeing, immediate devastation from being there, there is really no need to worry, right? Kinda like global warming, it’s much wiser to wait and be sure that it is human caused, that way we won’t waste any unnecessary energy and money on solutions just because some people are not sure (or in denial) about the ramifications.
Of course, global warming, as with low level radiation poisoning, shares this in common. If you are too ignorant to understand the science of it, by the time you get the confirmation that satisfies your naive view, it’s too late anyway.
Gnats and camels? The context my friend mentioned indicated to me that it was pretty clear what killed them, but I’m sure you would attribute that to some crazy CO2 theory rather than the obvious giant radioactive pit next to the town.
She’s in her early 40’s and many of her friends are dead. Were most of your friends dead at that age? I don’t know the real stats, but I trust she is not lying and that her perspective has some validity. Many of my childhood friends smoked tobacco, or still smoke. They’re not dead? Hmmm… maybe that’s a different death rate per capita than the people in Chernobyl experienced?
Let’s not forget the reach of the Chernobyl accident. Friends of mine live in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald), in Germany. They say they are not allowed to eat the wild bores because the bores eat the mushrooms; mushrooms apparently absorb a great deal of radioactivity. That does not sound so net positive to me.
I don’t know the real numbers, or the real problems, but to hear someone say a nuclear accident that killed so many and continues to cause problems across Europe, not to mentioned what might be happening in the region regarding mutations… well, wow! I guess some people are really smart at saying incredibly ignorant things.
Or are you taking the tack that you don’t like people and favor natural habitat minus humans?
RE: 778
Hey Doug,
Hmmm…, where to start, I think I will try simple. First, we have the function of the heat engine used to move things from one place to another, under the complete control and direction of a individual. Problem, those “Victorian boxes of metal” are the latest version of the second oldest mode of transportation, besides feet. To be human is to require an ability to move, with the ability to move regulated by the speed of the civilization, with the rate specified by the operator or agency. The problem is we are not a hive, we each move at our own pace. (With humans, a temporary compromise quickly gives way, in the light of an economic opportunity.)
The rules of efficiency are simple, the maximum amount of goes-outers per goes-intoers. Based on Carnot Heat Engine Theory virtually all heat engines have the potential to achieve near 62% efficiency, though there are issues such as expansion of pressure wave, work versus force vectors…, in the end efficiency is limited by basic rules, with energy resulting in work. The real issue is time, or application.
If we take a Gas Turbine and change the amount of time for the output, say from 1 second to say 6 seconds, its efficiency would drop off rather dramatically. While a recip- rocating, (Otto cycle?), would be rather flat. The issue of torque via mass versus RPM, are related to stroke versus displacement, versus force->work vectors with the efficiency related to the conversion of the chemical energy to mechanical energy. (Large displacement slow RPM Torque engines appear less efficient then low displacement high RPM torque, where friction apparently is less of an issue then incomplete combustion. The more accurate issue can be related to the observation that on average a personal vehicle moving at 50mph actually only requires about 16-20 hp, but the acceleration to 50mph from less then 10mph in 10 seconds would require nearly 200hp.)
So we have an issue how to achieve maximum efficiency over time, in any case, application is the dividing line. Hence, efficiencies when coupled to an application (read time for applying the available energy) is the deciding factor. As we are unlikely to do without the mechanical transportation under the control of us as the operator, (where as only the fuel will change), we must apply our intelligence to making this mode of transportation effective rather then joust at blue sky potential.
As to biomass concur, we are burning what was laid down over 100Ky and most likely 1My. To think we could recover in one year what took that long to pool is ridiculous; however, we can use an economically recoverable amount to offset the lack of reliability of other energy sources. With bio-LNG the potential exists, the nice thing is the path is straight, fossil LNG – biomass LNG, Hydrogen. . Forklifts not required! As to plastics, we made plenty out of natural resins long before we used petrol byproducts.
Growth – progress, same difference, just depends on the viewing point. As to the apology, this is not the forum for this discussion. If you want to discuss control over common goods or the conversion of a common good to a personal good, we have many subjects to choose from such as Wind, Sun, Water and Land, feel free to choose…
Cheers!
Dave Cooke
#769 Jim: Some numbers from a market leading manufacturer of modern large diesel power plants:
http://www.wartsila.com/,en,home,,,,,,.htm (Sustainability)
They cite efficiencies of 55% and up to 90% in cases where excess heat can be sold to space heating/cooling applications in a 3-stage cogeneration arrangement. The site shows also data on some alternative methods for fuel pre-processing and removal of various pollutants from the exhaust gases, with some cost estimates.
These kinds of plant are widely used for industrial power (in addition to ships), but also to cover utility peak loads.
RE: 777
Hey Jim,
You can also check out Noxtech’s Ceramic Catalyst System, it appears effective in reducing NOx by 90% at 500 Deg. C. Hence, again embedding the catalyst in the ceramic block or exhaust system it should be possible to reduce the effects of the higher combustion temp. At the same time offer additional heat for a secondary system.
Appreciate the Co-Gen desc-ription the issue remains though that the Gas Turbine was attempted by both Rail and Motor vehicles more then 40 years ago. In both cases they were great steady state; but, dramatically in efficient in stop and go.
(I recently suggested the use of rail autocars for distance transport of mini/urban cars to the NC Rail board. If we just could get the legal definition of vehicles less then 600cc classified the same as motorcycles of less then 5 bhp (meaning banded from interstates); yet allowed locally. It may be reasonable to supply long distance public transport for the small cars. Something along this line would work wonders for fossil fuel reductions. We even discussed using Diesel Truck Engine/Rail Cars similar to DoodleBug/Autocar combinations.)
Cheers!
Dave Cooke
The only solution I see is to start spreading the words “Together we can save the future of our planet”. We, from Brazil, have made an awareness campaign where the following video is the masterpiece. Watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrWwOcsMRrI
Access the link, comment, vote and, most important, share it with everyone. If you all help us sharing this video, you’ll be also helping the world against the global warming.
So, why not help us spreading the video above all around the world. This is very a important act for us all… Let’s try to make a better world and leave some good perspectives to the Earth’s next generations.
Rod B @ 775:
Please let me know when you’re serious and not just yanking my chain and wasting my time.
This is important stuff and getting people away from the “it can’t be done” attitude is a huge part of the process. I met with a potential business partner a week and a half ago and he didn’t know it was possible to run an entire house on solar. He understood, because he’s an electrical contractor, that a house doesn’t actually NEED a 15KW generator, but the notion that a reasonable sized house could function on a 10KW peak inverter stack didn’t register in his head.
So, the “it can’t be done” attitude that many advance here is something I deal with on a regular basis. I’d rather spend time educating people who are willing to be educated, than wasting it on people who don’t.
#692: “How the arrangement comes into being really doesn’t interest me. Nor would it interest any sane person.”
Barton, spoken as a real know-nothing. Feel free to celebrate your own lack of interest in history and nuance; I for one an uninterested in your lack of interest.
The point remains that arguments against slavery are simply red herrings – not arguments against property or similar mechanisms from controlling tragedy of the commons problems.
If you think slavery = property rights, why don`t you take it up with Defying Ocean’s End (representing Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Ocean Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, The World Conservation Union, and World Wildlife Fund), which points to the need to give fishermen property rights in fisheries?
You might also consider walking away from your own presumably evil, possession-filled life.
captcha: also fished
Jim #777, but you don’t have to push around the 65% of petrol that doesn’t get used in moving said petrol and car, passenger, etc around.
So even if they were *exactly* the same, that would be a difference.
Add it up over a billion cars, and soon you get a big difference.
Re #765, Yes well indeed the laws of thermodynamics and the fist one in particular (conservation of energy) forbids perpetual motion along with the second law on increasing entropy which speaks of heat engines and indeed was founded by Sardi Carnot and others in analysing them. Since their formation they have had no disagreement with empirical evidence.
However if you take the upward slope of a bell shaped curve for coal, gas and oil which we have been on for 200 odd years now you can see why econmics fits in with this rationale. Unlike physics which looks at a lot more economics is myopic and is created and defined during growth. Now that we are appraoching or perhaps already reached the summit of that growth then economics states that as supply and demand can never be balanced again the price will rocket and could destroy large parts of the global economy that are so deeply reliant on this type of energy to do the work.
Its easy to feel good about something when growth seems endless espeially during the good times. Optimists are in control and everything is good. This maybe about to change however but the optimists are still in power!
truth writes:
Don’t forget the black helicopters, and the insidious plan to use forced fluoridation to pollute and undermine our precious bodily fluids.
Jim Bullis writes:
Ewwww! Girls are icky!
Wilmot McCutchen writes:
As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters, “There is no way to get by logic alone from ‘I am losing interest in this’ to ‘This does not matter’.”
This is for those who still think nuclear is harmless.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/12/farmers-restricted-chernobyl-disaster
The discussions about Chernobyl and the nuclear messes at some National Laboratories in the USA are not useful relative to productive and sensible discussions about displacement of CO2 emissions. Continued focus on these nuclear-weapons related issues significantly decreases the signal-to-noise ratio.
All of these situations are consequences of the nuclear weapons programs carried out during the Cold War years and continuing to this day in nuclear-Navy programs around the world. Every one of them. None of them are in any way associated with the production of electricity by use of nuclear reactors. The current messes at Hanford, Savannah River, Rocky Flats, West Valley, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Idaho, Chernobyl, the Nevada Test Site, and all others resulted from various aspects of weapons programs. From production of Pu for bombs to left over ship propulsion plants, training systems, and experimental facilities. All Navys that use nuclear propulsion have contributed to the problems as have all countries that have made nuclear bombs.
There has been but a single expendable nuclear-powered experimental facility associated with civilian nuclear electricity production.
The plants at Chernobyl were designed for Pu production, as were the plants at Hanford and Savannah River and Oak Ridge. The design of the Chernobyl plants, in addition to being completely unconcerned with possible severe consequences to the public, were unique relative to the nuclear processes occurring in the reactor.
No nuclear systems designed for electricity production can experience the nuclear processes that occurred at Chernobyl. None. Not a single one anywhere on the entire planet. At the most basic and fundamental level, the processes that obtained at Chernobyl are designed out of civilian nuclear electricity production systems. The processes, while useful for production of Pu, are not necessary, and more importantly are to be avoided, if Pu production is not a design objective.
As for displacement of CO2 emissions, “Those who refuse to do arithmetic are doomed to talk nonsense”, and doomed to failure.
Dan “Continued focus on these nuclear-weapons related issues significantly decreases the signal-to-noise ratio.”
didn’t you mean “increases”?
However, they ARE very pertinent if the discussion goes to “Lets avoid CO2 by building nuclear plants”. It would be daft to avoid the dog chasing you by jumping into the shark pool, even if you know you’re a better swimmer than the dog so can swim away from it better than you can run away.
And North Korea and Iran’s plants were unable to produce weapon-grade material. Yet the US were prepared to invade a soverign country to stop it.
So to solve a GLOBAL problem, nuclear is a no-go since the US and other powers will not allow it to happen. Unless they’re the only ones making it.
And isn’t the current bogeyman the “dirty bomb” which just requires something radioactive that *sounds* bad (so not Radon, but Uranium will do nicely) and throw it about in a city.
Weapon capability isn’t a part of it.
So again, politics will MAKE nuclear a non-option, even if all the other problems are made to disappear.
And no bridge would EVER fail the same way as the Tacoma bridge. But the London millennium bridge found another failure mode, didn’t it.
Thanks, Abi, I had no idea that UK farmland was still affected by Chernobyl fallout. I’ll have to take a look and see what the numbers are like for Europe as a whole.
Dan, evidently you think we need new nuclear generation capability, and that reactors producing plutonium for nuclear weapons are much more dangerous than ordinary reactors. But I’m not so clear what your main assertion is–“these messes” is a bit vague (though maybe if I’d read further up-thread the context would help me out.) Certainly there have been accidents at civilian reactors, too–Chalk River (twice, IIRC), Fermi and of course TMI come to mind. And there’s still radioactive waste to dispose of somehow–though without the plutonium, admittedly. So, what are you claiming about the civilian reactors, exactly?
OT, thanks to those who checked out my Fourier article on Hubpages. Pouillet comes next, then Tyndall. . . (I don’t want to repost the link, but Googling “Fourier+hubpages” works fine to find it, if you missed the original notice and are interested.)
FurryCatHerder (786), Give me a break! You surely can’t think installing a new national grid to connect mega solar panels and wind turbines to the current grid is roughly the equivalent of bolting a few panels on your roof and running a few wires and electronic interfaces.
You will find nowhere where I said “it can’t be done.” I charged that “it” is magnitudes more difficult and complex than many claim. Yet those that say “no problem” with “it” stick to the insurmountable difficulties with nuclear. “It” being the national or global thing, not your roof installation.
RodB, “You surely can’t think installing a new national grid to connect mega solar panels and wind turbines ”
What makes you think there will need to be a new national grid? Are the electrons from solar panels a different shape and won’t fit down the same wires? Maybe the “green” electrons will fight with the “carbon” electrons and the loss of all that power will mean we have to keep them separate?
Rod B, all you need to do is to look around at what is actually being done right now.
Wind accounted for 42 percent of all new electric generating capacity built in the USA in 2008, second only to natural gas for the second year in a row. In the near future wind will account for the majority of all new electric capacity installed each year in the USA.
Major US utilities are investing in large-scale solar energy power plants, both photovoltaics and solar thermal.
The same is happening in other countries.
Worldwide, wind and solar are the fastest growing new source of energy, growing at record-breaking double-digit rates every year. Billions of dollars of private venture capital are pouring into wind and solar. The largest recipient of venture capital investment in the USA in 2008 was Nanosolar, a manufacturer of inexpensive, high-efficiency thin-film photovoltaics. Major wind turbine manufacturers are opening new factories all over the USA to meet the growing demand.
Meanwhile, nuclear power is languishing and major, high-profile new power plants are mired in the usual delays and cost overruns. In the USA, the nuclear industry is unable to attract private investment unless the taxpayers and ratepayers absorb all the costs and all the risks — including the risk that nuclear power plants will be unprofitable once they go online.
As for the power grid, we need a new grid anyway — the existing grid is in poor shape and barely able to do what it is already supposed to do, as recent large-scale blackouts have demonstrated. Since we need a complete overhaul of the grid anyway, we might as well build it to be able to integrate diverse, centralized and distributed, large and small, baseload and intermittent power generators, storage and consumers.
And again, the “big guns” are already working on this, with IT companies like Google and Cisco partnering with major utilities to develop the technology necessary for the “electricity Internet”.
I suggest reading the green tech news at CNet.com from time to time. You may be surprised at what is already happening in the field.
Rod B @ 797:
THERE IS NO NEED FOR A NEW NATIONAL GRID.
The “GRID” is just a bunch of generators, transmission lines, switches, control logic, and programs that run all of that.
Nor is it some massively complex task, significantly more complicated than the existing task of building new, and replacing old, generating capacity. I don’t know where you get this idea.
Take, for example, T Boone Pickens plan to build wind farms in West Texas. The 345KV transmission lines he wants built (I assume that’s what he wants to run — more 345KV lines) are just wires. Nothing magical because they are going to carry gigawatts of “wind” power instead of gigawatts of “coal” power. If someone sited a new coal plant, they may well need more of those transmission lines than there exist already, but I don’t see people screaming bloody hell about it. The only thing — absolutely the only thing — that is unique about West Texas wind transmission lines is … they are in West Texas.
So, really — it just isn’t the massively complex problem you apparently think it is. There are going to be grid operating problems in the future, the same as there were yesterday —
http://www.ercot.org/gridinfo/congestion/operations/2009/05/19/index
— except that with the technologies, none of which are weird or “hard”, that are in the pipeline, the grid works even better. Same wires, switchgear, substations, just a bit of different software, and the usual march of better and newer products for businesses and consumers to buy.
Unless you’ve got a specific Really Hard Problem in mind, I’m not seeing whatever it is you’re seeing.