Open thread for climate solution discussion. Climate science discussions should remain on the Unforced Variations thread.
Reader Interactions
854 Responses to "Forced Responses: Dec 2019"
David B. Bensonsays
Engineer-Poet @440 & Ray Ladbury @446 — Provide links to evidence. The salt domes haven’t melted away for many, many tens of millions of years.
IWPP uses so-called glass logs in any case.
Finally, the best thing would be fast neutron reactors to destroy the so-called waste. So far only Russia has those.
nigeljsays
DanH @447. We agree on nuclear power. That will be a first, and I suspect a last :) FWIW I see nuclear power as a bit player, so part of the mix, based on a lot of considerations. I dont mind a few reactors around the place, but tens of thousands and the probability that one or two will blow up really badly, worse than Chernobyl might increase to ominous levels. However its all in a state of flux, the technology and safety will likely improve.
Al Bundysays
E-P: What have YOU got?
AB: Access to you. And enough sense to know that at some point pounding becomes counter-productive. Pretty much everyone here is embarrassed for zebra because he’s smart and a good guy but in way over his head. But rubbing it in is ever so High School.
Re #449 Engineer-Liar said just how difficult would you rate the secure disposal of perhaps 10,000 tons/year of fission products, only a small fraction of which seriously needs to be isolated for over 500 years, compared to dumping several tens of gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year?
You’re a liar, and they digust me – as they should all. You have set up a Straw Man: When did I ever say “dumping several tens of gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year?” is a desired, good, beneficial, wanted, etc., thing to do? Why lie? Because you have no choice. You are a denialist dressed as a nuclear freak. Your premise, in the end, is, “What? Why change? We can use nuclear to keep consuming whatever we want!” That, of course, is just another lie. I state again, if we don’t need nuclear and nuclear is dangerous/poisonous to life, why do you advocate it? Simple: You will accept no inconvenience to your access to whatever you wish to consume, thus, your comfort.
So your Straw Man/False dichotomy is just another lie and just another form of denial.
And before you say I am lying with my characterization of your intentions/aims, what I said is easily sussed from the garbage you spew.
zebrasays
#439 E-P,
“what have you got?”
All I’ve got is that I understand that we reduce reactive power losses by installing capacitors to store energy when there is an inductive load. And that I can provide readers with concise, clear, expositions that help them understand the physics involved.
The nice thing about internet discussions now is that individuals can claim anything they want about what geniuses they are, but readers can make a reasoned decision about which “position” makes the most sense. They can look in an actual textbook, as I provided, for example.
To me, the proliferation of serious sources of knowledge (rather than some random blog-person) is an important and valuable development, but obviously it requires the types of reasoning skills that I mentioned previously. This is really a new paradigm relative to 50 years ago; memorization is much, much, less important than relational thinking.
nigeljsays
Zebra @457 says “All I’ve got is that I understand that we reduce reactive power losses by installing capacitors to store energy when there is an inductive load.”
And EP has said much the same as far as I can tell. He has never denied capacitors store energy, just that they use this for different purposes, so what the hell is your problem? Looks like you are misinterpreting him a bit.
Your relational thinking is VERY important, and is something that not many people have highlighted, but there is no substitute for knowing information as EP clearly does. Its not an either or thing. We need a great deal more of both skills.
That said, some of EP’s ideas drive me a bit nuts. But It would be a strange world if we all agreed on everything.
nigeljsays
“This is really a new paradigm relative to 50 years ago; memorization is much, much, less important than relational thinking.”
Dont buy into this academic bullshit that rote leaning is not needed any more, its patently absurd. Just try living in this world if you constantly had to look up words like America, Russia, uranium, sustainability, or things like the formula for the area of a rectangle or circle, etc.
But we also need to teach kids much more about relational thinking, logic, reasoning, logical fallacies, creativity, critical thinking, thinking from first principles, etc.
Its not either / or. This should be obvious, but apparently it isn’t.
zebrasays
#453 Al Bundy,
AB, I suggested that anyone who wanted to contradict me or the cited textbook should feel free to do so.
But so far I have only heard childish ranting… no physics.
As I recall, you said you didn’t know much about electricity yourself. So why do you conclude that what I said is incorrect?
nigeljsays
Nuclear waste storage problem / headache.
Nuclear waste should be a self limiting process, in the sense that we will eventually run out of uranium, etc. We have to manage it and quantify risks just for this period plus a bit. Ok its a long period.
How much area would a leak damage ecologically, and how much area are we prepared to put at risk? So do we actually have a problem ecologically?
Or can we so isolate the storage in the middle of deserts so that its not an issue? But over many thousands of years deserts will change…
Dont tell me it will never leak. We have to assume some level of problem. And dont tell me no level of risk is acceptable.Life is full of risks. Those are the rules of the game.
Zebra and EP keep telling me they are top guns at maths or quantitative thinking. Prove it. Do the calcs / quantitative thinking. Anyone really. Even just a very rough stab would be quite interesting.
nigeljsays
Is the following correct? Looks correct to me from secondary school science and some hobby electronics I briefly did as a kid.
“It’s (The Capacitors) function is to store the electrical energy and give this energy again to the circuit when necessary. In other words, it charges and discharges the electric charge stored in it. Besides this, the functions of a capacitor are as follows:
It blocks the flow of DC and permits the flow of AC.
It is used for coupling of the two sections.
It bypasses (grounds) the unwanted frequencies.
It feeds the desired signal to any section.
It is used for phase shifting.
It is also used for creating a delay in time.
It is also used for filtration,especially in removing ripples from rectified waveform.
It is used to get tuned frequency.
It is used as a motor starter.
It is also used in conjunction with a resistor to filter ripples in a rectifier circuit.”
The salt domes haven’t melted away for many, many tens of millions of years.
The salt domes didn’t have a whole bunch of heat-generating stuff in them either. Brine in rock salt most certainly does flow, including toward heat. If you add a big source of heat you’re going to stress things; add enough heat and you can get steam. That’s why deep boreholes are certainly better than salt domes for the hot, short-lived waste isotopes.
the best thing would be fast neutron reactors to destroy the so-called waste. So far only Russia has those.
China looked at a BN-800 also, but is building a CFR600 instead. Ground was broken just over 2 years ago.
Thomassays
The Australian Bushfires and Climate change has gotten some good press via Celebrities and Sports stars of late.
What’s been happening, is still happening and will definitely continue for weeks and months ahead could not really be labelled “a natural disaster.” It’s not even a catastrophe – becasue those words fail to adequately describe what’s occurred so far. “Unprecedented” is another word that is insufficient to capture the full reality. I cannot describe it. No picture or video can do it justice in the scale of this.
Take West Australia, where fires have been going since December and the only sealed interstate road connecting to South Australia has been cut by fires for 8 days, leaving truckers and families stranded in their cars on the side of the road in 47C heat. That highway has been opened today temporarily but will be closed again. 9 fire fronts active for 6 weeks (?) now, having burnt out over 350,000 Hectares, 1350 square miles. Extends from the south coast up to the Gold fields of Kalgoolie. That’s a disaster but not even the tip of an iceberg.
In comparison the 2018 CA wildfires disaster burnt out 766,439 ha.
And in 2019 CA wildfires covered only 105,147 ha.
Well as I said I think it’s now 7 million hectares or 27,000 square miles burnt across all states of Australia now starting in October
This equals 1/10th the State of Texas. Or more than the whole State of West Virginia @ 24,230 sq mi – Is that a lot?
And the fires are still burning. Hundred of them. With between 20 to 50 burning out of control from one moment to the next.
Kangaroo Island in South Australia, the third largest island in Australia, has burnt out 195,000 hectares in a few days, over one third of the island with several dead, dozens of homes, thousands of livestock killed, and a luxury hotel destroyed.
SMH Latest Bushfire News
Fire damage shuts Blue Mountains line to electric trains for months
A section of rail llne between Lithgow and Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains has suffered extensive damage from bushfires.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a $2 billion National Bushfire Recovery Fund to support the rebuilding of Australia after a horror fire season. https://www.smh.com.au/topic/bushfires-5vj
3000 Defence force reserves have been called out to assist (like the national guard I suppose) and that has never bee done before!
3 naval vessels deployed full time.
Dozens of Military aircraft in use.
The Govt has opened up every Military Base from Brisbane (east coast QLD) down and across to Adelaide in South Australia for emergency support of fire victims and evacuees to stay and be cared for when there is no other places available via usual fire recovery safe places networks — food beds showers doctors etc — that too is a unprecedented step.
Livestock killed numbered at least 500,000 more likely to be above 1 million before long. Remember this is coming on the back of the most severe drought in history across much of Australia. The economic losses long term, the emergency responses, and the recovery will easily cost in the tens of $ Billions.
Coming Thursday and Friday severe fire conditions return with high 40s temps and strong winds across all the existing fire grounds. The dislocations will get even worse, and now the bureau of meteorology has just announced that fire conditions Australia wide are expected to get even worse into the coming months as the Fire season progresses all the way into April.
Honestly words fail me. Even knowing that sooner or later this is how bad things would get – with multiple extreme ‘weather’ events occurring simultaneously – doesn’t help one bit to handle the degree of shock and horror at how bad things can get so suddenly, so extreme, so very very fast, across so much of the country at the same time and then not stop happening!
These fires are unstoppable. There is very little the fire services can do. They’re ordered another 4 emergency water bombing aircraft to rent, but I doubt that can help except for saving some properties about to be burnt down. They won’t stop the fire fronts that have been happening the last several weeks.
My best advice is to listen (and really hear) the stories people are telling about their experiences with these fires. Listen to the back drop of the political discussions in a country where half the Politicians are some of the most agressive climate change denying anti-science extremists in the world (and where many still are!!!)
Things need to change how we do things and how we think. (that’s a quick overview of many feedbacks. Some people are really angry, but everyone is frustrated. To deal with this like ‘grown ups’ almost everything needs to change everywhere over time but the sooner the better. It’s already too late to stop the coming impacts of massive climate change.
And it’s still only +1.3C – at +2C almost all of Australia will become un-liveable, not viable, in my opinion. Learn from Australia’s experience now is my best tip.
Thomassays
Via ABC News24 site – Academic scientists using previously published studies of data are estimating over 1 billion wildlife are dead or affected (likely to starve) as a result of the bush fires in NSW/VIC in south east of Australia thus far. Wildlife being reptiles, mammals, marsupials and birds. Then there’s other life like bees and insects lost all critical to the web of life.
I suggested that anyone who wanted to contradict me or the cited textbook should feel free to do so.
You were referred TWICE to a textbook section on power-factor correction, the second time here back @400. You dug until you found a textbook describing something else that fit your prejudices and claimed victory. You cannot recognize that it is inapplicable despite being told so, and even why.
so far I have only heard childish ranting… no physics.
Math is “childish ranting” now? You were tasked with doing a bit of trig (related to physics) here back @420. It appears you cannot even do trigonometry. This is exactly what I expected: you are innumerate. Had you been able to follow the trig the answer could have been a step on your way to understanding the point at issue, but you can’t.
Nobody can prove anything to you because you do not have the brains to understand the proofs, or even the point being made. “Ignorance is strength”, but you can’t build electric grids with it.
Nuclear waste should be a self limiting process, in the sense that we will eventually run out of uranium, etc.
Nope, not that way. There’s 32,000 tons of uranium carried into the oceans every year by rivers, against perhaps 5000 tons required to meet 100% of current human energy consumption.† There’s enough to keep the whole world at at least a European level of energy consumption literally as long as Earth has a hydrological cycle.
Nuclear “waste” (most of which isn’t) is self-limiting because it decays. If you start with a chunk of Sr-90, in 30.1 years only half of it will still be Sr-90; in a century, only 10% of it will be. You reach an asymptotic level after about 100 years of production where you have roughly 43 years worth of it (30.1/ln(2)) in inventory and it is decaying away as fast as it’s generated.
There are a handful of fission products which are long-lived enough to keep building up, century after century. IIUC these number just two: Tc-99 and I-129. We have more than enough salt domes to put them away for tens of millions of years; it’s not like we need to mine them for salt with the oceans full of it.
Or can we so isolate the storage in the middle of deserts so that its not an issue?
If you have stuff that’s hot for more than a century but less than 1000 centuries, deep boreholes will put it away from anything living long enough to decay to harmlessness. That’s really the standard of care here: the world has lots of lead and arsenic and cadmium, but it can’t hurt you if you don’t come in contact with it. Ditto radioisotopes.
@463: Yes, that list of functions is correct. I’m not going to see if it’s exhaustive, though. Note that #9 is a subset of #5; a capacitor-start motor uses the capacitor to generate a phase shift between two different stator windings, creating a rotating magnetic field which gets the squirrel-cage rotor moving from a dead stop. Power-factor correction is also arguably a subset of #5.
† This of course assumes the use of fast-neutron breeder reactors, converting 99+% of all uranium into energy. Thermal spectrum reactors which consume 0.5-1% would require 2+ orders of magnitude as much. Even so, you’d have thousands of years before you ran low on dissolved uranium in seawater.
Your relational thinking is VERY important, and is something that not many people have highlighted, but there is no substitute for knowing information as EP clearly does. Its not an either or thing. We need a great deal more of both skills.
That said, some of EP’s ideas drive me a bit nuts. But It would be a strange world if we all agreed on everything.
True all dat. Dat said, IMHO some of EP’s ideas are nuts. They’re just inextricably mixed with his otherwise impressive knowledge and skills. I only hope our due credit won’t go to his head. I urge him not to run for public office 8^}!
nigeljsays
Regarding #464 on Australias bushfires this is relevant, if reading between the lines:
“Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks. Climate researchers are increasingly exploring risk potentials associated with compound climate change events….”
David B. Bensonsays
Engineer-Poet @463 — So I skimmed the report. But the salt formations east of Carlsbad NM are capped by 100 million year old impervious rock. There is no brine. And even so, nobody is going to use metal containers for the once-through nuclear pins. Encase in ceramics if thought necessary. That report states nothing about the actual WIPP practice.
Anyway, there is now a repository for the above ground storage of the once-through nuclear pins. It is in that general area. It will do to store the material until there are fast reactors to consume it.
When you allow yourself to be optimistic, how do you see the next few decades unfolding?
Well, I won’t be here for one, so I won’t see them. But I think we will have to curb our tendency to burn fossil fuels. And I think the big companies are beginning to realize themselves that you can’t make money that way. What replaces it, I hope, is nuclear, but probably they’ll mess about with renewables for awhile until they find their way to nuclear.
Why do you think it has been so difficult to get nuclear power going again?
Because there’s propaganda. I think the coal and oil business fight like mad to tell bad stories about nuclear.
Why is that? Because historically they haven’t seen renewables as the same scale of threat?
Yeah. I mean, when you look at the death rates in the nuclear industry, it’s almost ludicrously low. In this country, I think, it doesn’t exist at all. Nobody’s been hurt.
And even if you look at the worst disasters, they’re nothing compared with the damage that’s done by burning coal.
That’s right. It’s a fake business. And it’s amazing that people have been persuaded by it. I wish you journalists would write out what happened, because just after World War II, there was a lot of interest in using nuclear power and the politicians are all for it. In fact, one of them said, it’ll be so cheap, it will be impossible to meter it. Which is — would that it were true! But the people with loads of money in the oil industry made sure that never happened. And of course the greens played along with it. There’s bound to have been some corruption there — I’m sure that various green movements were paid some sums on the side to help with propaganda.
Just the word nuclear conjures such fears now. It’s almost as though, if it had just been called a different thing, the public would have been much more receptive to it. And if we don’t move into nuclear more aggressively, do you think there’s any hope that we avoid, say, two degrees of warming? Or is that basically inevitable?
I wish I knew. People have to ask the questions of the financial people — there’s the real driver. The reason we’re continuing to burn fossil fuels is that all the money’s invested in it, right? I find it almost hilarious.
It seems to me that the public is slowly waking up to this story. Especially over the past couple of years, there has been a kind of a change.
Well, I hope you’re right. I look at those affairs like the Paris conference more as parties. So, great, get together, you’ll have a great time. But the conferences are not serious.
And no country in the world is honoring the pledges it made during the Paris accords….
RTWT.
Al Bundysays
zebra: As I recall, you said you didn’t know much about electricity yourself. So why do you conclude that what I said is incorrect?
AB: As I said, I’ve learned a lot from E-P (though’retained’ is another issue). I found his analysis compelling while yours sounded like legalese, literally comparing a capacitor’s vibrating molehill to a big-ol-honking motor’s mountain of energy flow.
I got pissed at E-P and pissed at myself that I was going to jump in on E-P’s side. In that frame of mind I did an inferior job. Next time I’ll do better.
I looked up supercapacitor efficiency. 95%
On rote learning: I was seriously good at it in early childhood but I’ve abstained since then, primarily because I’m now bad at it. Instead, I retain flavors and hooks that lead to external data. Back when I programmed I kept the language reference between my arms so I could flip it to whichever page allowed me to keep typing.
Strange, though. When I took a consulting firm’s Progress test (name of language) I thought I did pretty poorly. Later I heard two guys whispering in the hall as they passed the room I was in that I’d scored the highest in the firm’s history.
Perhaps BPL is inversely correct. Am I DK on the good side of the graph?
Killiansays
Re #455 Barton Paul Levenson said K: We don’t need nuclear.
E-P: Wrong. We can’t survive WITH fossils.
BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
For him, yes. For my statement, no. This error is a result of your bias against regenerative solutions/simplicity and your ignorance WRT the same.
What I said is factually correct. We do not need nuclear to solve climate, and in fact would do it faster and more safely w/o nuclear. There is no bifucation and no fallacy: One is not a solution, one is.
Had I said something like, “Nuclear energy and nuclear materials of all kinds are evil and have no use in this world, period,” you would be correct.
Karsten V. Johansensays
Reality check for anyone tired of, and therrfore not taking part in the always roaring smalltalk hurricane of the chattering classes of the global village:
The only climate politics of any significance going on in the world today is 1) the ever faster growing enormous greenhouse gas emissions from the whole global capital accumulation project: business as extremely usual and 2) the colossal greenhouse gas emissions forming a substantial part of this, stemming from the US and to a far lesser degree other military-industrial complexes involved in a growing number of wars over the remaining oil and gas reserves, and now fast moving towards a new phase of the total imperialist world war, which started in june to august 1914.
The smoke clouds from the australian part of the escalating climate catastrophe can now be seen clouding the sun from 6000 kms up in the air over Chile and Argentina, 12000 kms away from Australia. Half a billion animals there dead so far. Most of Asia and Siberia are recording temperatures twenty degrees C above the climatic normal 1981-2010. Northern Europe, east Greenland, central to eastern parts of the US and Canada plus the whole Antarctica “only” eight to twelve degrees C above the same normal.
Everything now points towards the inevitable conclusion: capitalism is the slowly evolving collapse of humankind and the sixth major extinction since life evolved on earth around three billion years ago. Discussing minor details in this won’t change anything, not even the slightest bit. The only thing which could have stopped this before it was too late, is carbon fee and dividend as proposed by James Hansen many years ago. I continue to say this, but only like a pilot on The Titanic talking to completely deaph ears, and while crying without any hope whatsoever.
As his soulmate Rex Tillerson said about Trump: “He is a fucking moron”. But unfortnuately he is far from alone, there are lots and lots of morons out there, beginning with his fake and just as corrupt opponents in the 3/4 republican party, the socalled democrats.
The solution is not #tech, but #TEK – Traditional (aborigine) Ecological Knowledge).
#Permaculture
Thomassays
Do be aware (tell your friends) there are numerous FAKE FUNDRAISING SCAMS already. Be careful – this page can helps people not to make such mistakes.
Australia’s devastating fires are still burning. Here’s how you can help
The bushfires, which have been burning since September, have killed at least 25 people, destroyed 2,000 homes and killed an estimated 500 million animals. In all, about 15 million acres have burned across the country – an area roughly the size of West Virginia.***
<shrug> If you’ve got better ones that can do the job in the next 20 years (and 20 years is already taking WAY too long, since we should have been done 10 years ago), get ’em out here.
Multiple options exist to reduce energy supply sector GHG
emissions (robust evidence, high agreement). These include energy
efficiency improvements and fugitive emission reductions in fuel
extraction as well as in energy conversion, transmission, and distribution
systems; fossil fuel switching; and low-GHG energy supply technologies
such as renewable energy (RE), nuclear power, and carbon
dioxide capture and storage (CCS). [7.5, 7.8.1, 7.11]
There are currently NO countries which have decarbonized fossil-based energy systems using any combination of RE or CCS, and the poster child for such a transition (Germany) is failing badly. If you claim otherwise, SHOW ME.
Decarbonizing (i. e. reducing the carbon intensity of) electricity
generation is a key component of cost-effective mitigation
strategies in achieving low-stabilization levels (430 – 530 ppm
CO2eq); in most integrated modelling scenarios, decarbonization
happens more rapidly in electricity generation than in the
industry, buildings and transport sectors (medium evidence, high
agreement). In the majority of low-stabilization scenarios, the share
of low-carbon electricity supply (comprising RE, nuclear and CCS)
increases from the current share of approximately 30 % to more than
80 % by 2050, and fossil fuel power generation without CCS is phased
out almost entirely by 2100. [7.11]
France, Sweden and Ontario decarbonized their electricity almost by accident by going nuclear.
and in fact would do it faster and more safely w/o nuclear.
Assertion which denies massive evidence to the contrary. You may believe it, but it’s still a lie.
There is no bifucation and no fallacy: One is not a solution, one is.
Yes, yours is definitely a solution. A Final Solution (see next comment).
The solution is not #tech, but #TEK – Traditional (aborigine) Ecological Knowledge).
#Permaculture
Yes, it had to be something like this, didn’t it?
Tell us, Kill-Ian, how many people can be supported by said permaculture systems? (Remember, you also have to supply things like materials for what wears out, and fuel to keep warm in winter wherever it gets cold.) We already know that this number is VASTLY smaller than the number of people currently living; the number of e.g. dwellings we can heat using storable, renewable wood is far too few to house everyone.
Your scheme requires that some billions of people die. Presumably, they’d have to die very soon because all the systems that currently supply their food and shelter and warmth would be replaced by far-less-productive permacultures almost right away. Do you see yourself as the one who picks who lives and who dies?
Thomas @477: I have always taken you straight, no chaser. Now tell us: is this crisis sufficient to move Australia to use its own uranium to supply its electricity without fossil fuels?
To the mods: I have a reply to a libelous screed from Killian which is disappearing into some sort of filter-limbo. I would very much appreciate it if you would dig there and rescue it.
nigeljsays
MAL Adapated @469, agreed, and that is precisely why I reinforce his engineering and I’m gently critical (in other comments) of his political ideas. Nothing like a bit of operant conditioning. Ha ha.You seem quite smart so you will understand.
nigeljsays
Al Bundy @473 “On rote learning: I was seriously good at it in early childhood but I’ve abstained since then, primarily because I’m now bad at it. Instead, I retain flavors and hooks that lead to external data. ”
I was good at rote leaning as well. School is the time for rote learning. You need a lot of basic information to navigate life. You can’t understand a computer if you don’t have basic terms memorised. As you get older rote learning gets less important, because you “know where to look” and use flavours and hooks. And filofax organisers. You have enough basics memorised to get by.
Our education system moved away from rote leaning of facts, times tables even, and has downplayed the importance of spelling and grammar. Its been a disaster. When kids get to university they can’t even write a coherent, organised essay and have needed remedial classes. Professors are disgusted and fed up. Our PISA rankings have dropped badly. That said, many other skills are equally important like reasoning and critical thinking, creative problem solving, lateral thinking.
I’m older now, and have no interest in learning stuff like names and dates, and suck at memorising dates for some reason. No problem with technical data. I have a memory like an elephant for what counts. You gotta figure out whats important.
Careful you aren’t developing dunning kruger. A few symptoms are appearing :)
nigeljsays
Karsten V. Johansen @475, carbon fee and dividend is quite good in principle, except the problem is America has this huge anti tax ideology, particularly the GOP. You might be be better off promoting something like the GND, so a government infrastructure package along with environmental regulations.
Rex Tillerson. Master of understatement.
nigeljsays
In the right corner, we have nuclear power, in the left corner Killians simplification. In the changing rooms renewable energy is getting ready. In the seats the bewildered public deciding which one of these pills they want to swallow, or what combination, and what size pills. What will they do? I’m pretty sure I know.
zebrasays
#473 Al Bundy,
“I found his analysis compelling”
Do me a favor and show me his “analysis”… I have yet to see any analysis addressing and contradicting what I said.
In my world, “understanding the physics” means being able to explain it in your own words. He hasn’t… the citation I gave is an excellent example; it goes through the math and gives a concise, clear description of what is happening physically.
Most EE I’ve ever worked with (admittedly in an academic setting, where comprehension matters), if they thought that I was misapplying the concept in the case of reactive power…
All I’ve got is that I understand that we reduce reactive power losses by installing capacitors to store energy when there is an inductive load.
… would be eager to explain what is wrong with what I said. It would take a few sentences at most, don’t you think? I asked EP many times to describe what the capacitors were doing if they weren’t storing energy…still no answer.
Now, AB, in your more lucid moments, you would be quite capable of following the reasoning here, so if you want to accept the challenge, give it some thought. (Note that EP has agreed with all these points.)
1. There’s a factory with lots of electric motors.
2. The motors, being inductive, create reactive power.
3. The reactive power heats up the transmission lines (including transformers).
4. Installing the capacitors results in the transmission lines not heating up.
For him, yes. For my statement, no. This error is a result of your bias against regenerative solutions/simplicity and your ignorance WRT the same.
BPL: Dear God, you are a stupid man. The fallacy of bifurcation I referred to had NOTHING to do with your ideas about simplicity. I was simply referring to the idea that we had to have either coal or nuclear. Can’t you read?
Al Bundysays
Re #455 Barton Paul Levenson said K: We don’t need nuclear.
E-P: Wrong. We can’t survive WITH fossils.
BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
AB: I don’t see it. E-P has laid out his case in depth: fossils kill, renewables fail, and nuclear, well, remember the grafiti, “Hell no! We won’t glow!”?
E-P probably spray paints, “Is nuclear power dangerous?” in front.
_________
Thomas: I don’t exaggerate anything ever
AB: Oops, that’s the first time!
Mr. Know It Allsays
475 – Karsten VJ
“The only thing which could have stopped this before it was too late, is carbon fee and dividend as proposed by James Hansen many years ago.”
Yeah, that’s the ticket. Another tax that will save the world. Oh, and just give total control of the world to the One World Goobermint – that will surely turn the planet into utopia. And AGW is all DJT’s fault – he’s been in office for less than 3 years and HE IS THE PROBLEM. ALL other nations can do nothing about AGW because of DJT.
ROFLMAO
“…and killed an estimated 500 million animals. In all, about 15 million acres have burned across the country…”
I’d believe that 500,000,000 number if it includes insects – might even be low – but for larger animals, let’s see some scientific data backing up that big scary VERY ROUND number.
On the Aussie acreage burned, that’s a lot. Much of it is due to poor land use practices (not burning or removing brush, etc), and sadly, to arson.
For comparison to North America, from Wikipedia: “From 2007 to 2017, wildfires burned an average of 6.2 and 6.6 million acres/year in the U.S. and Canada, respectively.” So, around 12 million per year average.
Re #486 nigelj said In the right corner, we have nuclear power
Hmmm… just nuclear power.
in the left corner Killians simplification.
Hmm… yet here we have an attempt to diminish simplification by attatching the concept to a single individual.
You have never, and will never, have anything to add. A years-long intentional act on your part. You, sir, are a dishonest man, a bit disgusting.
Stop posting.
Killiansays
Re #480 Engineer-Poet said Killian shows his fascist desires
You say a lot of stupid shit, but that takes the cake. You have just finalized what most here already know: You talk out of your ass.
From M-W: fascism : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
As practiced by Mussolini, State/Corporate control of society. That’s what YOU promote, you unintentionally ironic fool. Corporate and gov’t control of energy is a key aspect of controlling the socio-politico-economic lives of The People.
Calling me fascist shows just what an empty shill you are.
The solution is not #tech, but #TEK – Traditional (aborigine) Ecological Knowledge).
#Permaculture
Yes, it had to be something like this, didn’t it?
Yes. I observe and analyze, unlike your rote regurgitation of bullshit.
Tell us, Kill-Ian
LOL… Yes, child?
how many people can be supported by said permaculture systems?
I minimum of 12 billion, depending on how far we allow climate to get out of control. But, then, if the world is permacultural, we’ll be back to <300ppm in anywhere from 20 to 100 years.
Your scheme requires that some billions of people die.
Because you say so? You’re an idiot. 2/3 of the world already lives simply, liar.
Killiansays
Re #489 Al Bundy said BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
AB: I don’t see it.
He does. See his asinine screed against simplicity… and the venom of it. I am very good at outing fools. Their egos can never handle the direct naming of their stupidity and lies.
nigeljsays
MR KIA @490 says that higher temperatures caused by global warming cant make forest fires worse. What a clueless clown.
Mr. Know It Allsays
480 – EP
“Tell us, Kill-Ian, how many people can be supported by said permaculture systems?”
455 Barton Paul Levenson says:
5 Jan 2020 at 6:50 AM
K: We don’t need nuclear.
E-P: Wrong. We can’t survive WITH fossils.
BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
I’m not stupid, you’re an ass making excuses. You included my statement. If you were only making a point about nuclear vs FFs, my comment is superfluous. The only interpretation that makes sense is you claiming we were both making the same mistake because we both stated exclusionary comments, or a bifurcated position.
Your mistake. How sad you must deflect.
Killiansays
Re: #479 Engineer-Poet said Killian puts me back into “I’m from Missouri” mode @474:
We do not need nuclear to solve climate
The IPCC says otherwise
Do you ask your dentist to repair your car engine? Your doctor to build your house? Appeal to Authority Fallacy.
Lie:
Multiple options exist to reduce energy supply sector GHG
emissions (robust evidence, high agreement). These include energy
efficiency improvements and fugitive emission reductions in fuel
extraction as well as in energy conversion, transmission, and distribution
systems; fossil fuel switching; and low-GHG energy supply technologies
such as renewable energy (RE), nuclear power, and carbon
dioxide capture and storage (CCS). [7.5, 7.8.1, 7.11]
Nothing in that quote states nuclear is needed. It is stated as an option.
This is why I ignored you for so long; talking to nuclear freaks is every bit as useless as talking to climate denialists.
Lie: There are currently NO countries which have decarbonized fossil-based energy systems using any combination of RE or CCS, and the poster child for such a transition (Germany) is failing badly. If you claim otherwise, SHOW ME.
Stuff your Straw Man.
and in fact would do it faster and more safely w/o nuclear.
Assertion which denies massive evidence to the contrary.
Fact. There is nothing keeping any household, community or country from transitioning to regenerative systems within 5 years. Nuclear, in the best case scenarios, would never get to 100% of needs.
You may believe it, but it’s still a lie.
There is no bifucation and no fallacy: One is not a solution, one is.
Yes, yours is definitely a solution. A Final Solution (see next comment).
Correct. Indefinite abundance for all.
You are useless. Your presence here has destroyed the usefulness of these fora. Your intent, I am certain.
Now, go eff yourself. Done with you, solutions denier/Capitalism enabler/catastrophy creator.
nigeljsays
zebra @487 says “The motors, being inductive, create reactive power.” This doesn’t sound right. Motors actually require reactive power for the magnetic field to function properly. In this instance capacitors in the circuit are supplying reactive power to the motor (simplifying it a bit). Refer AC Power on wikipedia, or technopedia, this is what it says.
Thomassays
#490 Such a sad case. Your name reads Knows Nothing at All.
#489 This is not the time for you to give up the drink, so carry on.
#481 “Now tell us: is this crisis sufficient to move Australia to use its own uranium to supply its electricity without fossil fuels?”
No way. No chance. Surely you don’t think these or any other bush fires or climate events are going to seriously change anything going forward anywhere.
#475 “The only thing which could have stopped this before it was too late, is carbon fee and dividend”
If that’s the silver bullet solution then those proposing it surely don’t understand the cause nor the scale of the problem. May as well all go out and buy ourselves a brand new Tesla instead.
“Fossil fuel political giving (in America) outdistances renewables 13 to one. During the latest midterm election cycle, the fossil fuel industry paid at least $359 million for federal campaign donations and lobbying….”
Knew it was a huge difference, but not that huge. Sad.
Engineer-Poet @440 & Ray Ladbury @446 — Provide links to evidence. The salt domes haven’t melted away for many, many tens of millions of years.
IWPP uses so-called glass logs in any case.
Finally, the best thing would be fast neutron reactors to destroy the so-called waste. So far only Russia has those.
DanH @447. We agree on nuclear power. That will be a first, and I suspect a last :) FWIW I see nuclear power as a bit player, so part of the mix, based on a lot of considerations. I dont mind a few reactors around the place, but tens of thousands and the probability that one or two will blow up really badly, worse than Chernobyl might increase to ominous levels. However its all in a state of flux, the technology and safety will likely improve.
E-P: What have YOU got?
AB: Access to you. And enough sense to know that at some point pounding becomes counter-productive. Pretty much everyone here is embarrassed for zebra because he’s smart and a good guy but in way over his head. But rubbing it in is ever so High School.
E-P,
You pissed away a winning hand.
And she said, “Eww that stench.”
K: We don’t need nuclear.
E-P: Wrong. We can’t survive WITH fossils.
BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
Re #449 Engineer-Liar said just how difficult would you rate the secure disposal of perhaps 10,000 tons/year of fission products, only a small fraction of which seriously needs to be isolated for over 500 years, compared to dumping several tens of gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year?
You’re a liar, and they digust me – as they should all. You have set up a Straw Man: When did I ever say “dumping several tens of gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year?” is a desired, good, beneficial, wanted, etc., thing to do? Why lie? Because you have no choice. You are a denialist dressed as a nuclear freak. Your premise, in the end, is, “What? Why change? We can use nuclear to keep consuming whatever we want!” That, of course, is just another lie. I state again, if we don’t need nuclear and nuclear is dangerous/poisonous to life, why do you advocate it? Simple: You will accept no inconvenience to your access to whatever you wish to consume, thus, your comfort.
So your Straw Man/False dichotomy is just another lie and just another form of denial.
And before you say I am lying with my characterization of your intentions/aims, what I said is easily sussed from the garbage you spew.
#439 E-P,
“what have you got?”
All I’ve got is that I understand that we reduce reactive power losses by installing capacitors to store energy when there is an inductive load. And that I can provide readers with concise, clear, expositions that help them understand the physics involved.
The nice thing about internet discussions now is that individuals can claim anything they want about what geniuses they are, but readers can make a reasoned decision about which “position” makes the most sense. They can look in an actual textbook, as I provided, for example.
To me, the proliferation of serious sources of knowledge (rather than some random blog-person) is an important and valuable development, but obviously it requires the types of reasoning skills that I mentioned previously. This is really a new paradigm relative to 50 years ago; memorization is much, much, less important than relational thinking.
Zebra @457 says “All I’ve got is that I understand that we reduce reactive power losses by installing capacitors to store energy when there is an inductive load.”
And EP has said much the same as far as I can tell. He has never denied capacitors store energy, just that they use this for different purposes, so what the hell is your problem? Looks like you are misinterpreting him a bit.
Your relational thinking is VERY important, and is something that not many people have highlighted, but there is no substitute for knowing information as EP clearly does. Its not an either or thing. We need a great deal more of both skills.
That said, some of EP’s ideas drive me a bit nuts. But It would be a strange world if we all agreed on everything.
“This is really a new paradigm relative to 50 years ago; memorization is much, much, less important than relational thinking.”
Dont buy into this academic bullshit that rote leaning is not needed any more, its patently absurd. Just try living in this world if you constantly had to look up words like America, Russia, uranium, sustainability, or things like the formula for the area of a rectangle or circle, etc.
But we also need to teach kids much more about relational thinking, logic, reasoning, logical fallacies, creativity, critical thinking, thinking from first principles, etc.
Its not either / or. This should be obvious, but apparently it isn’t.
#453 Al Bundy,
AB, I suggested that anyone who wanted to contradict me or the cited textbook should feel free to do so.
But so far I have only heard childish ranting… no physics.
As I recall, you said you didn’t know much about electricity yourself. So why do you conclude that what I said is incorrect?
Nuclear waste storage problem / headache.
Nuclear waste should be a self limiting process, in the sense that we will eventually run out of uranium, etc. We have to manage it and quantify risks just for this period plus a bit. Ok its a long period.
How much area would a leak damage ecologically, and how much area are we prepared to put at risk? So do we actually have a problem ecologically?
Or can we so isolate the storage in the middle of deserts so that its not an issue? But over many thousands of years deserts will change…
Dont tell me it will never leak. We have to assume some level of problem. And dont tell me no level of risk is acceptable.Life is full of risks. Those are the rules of the game.
Zebra and EP keep telling me they are top guns at maths or quantitative thinking. Prove it. Do the calcs / quantitative thinking. Anyone really. Even just a very rough stab would be quite interesting.
Is the following correct? Looks correct to me from secondary school science and some hobby electronics I briefly did as a kid.
https://electronics.fandom.com/wiki/Capacitor
“It’s (The Capacitors) function is to store the electrical energy and give this energy again to the circuit when necessary. In other words, it charges and discharges the electric charge stored in it. Besides this, the functions of a capacitor are as follows:
It blocks the flow of DC and permits the flow of AC.
It is used for coupling of the two sections.
It bypasses (grounds) the unwanted frequencies.
It feeds the desired signal to any section.
It is used for phase shifting.
It is also used for creating a delay in time.
It is also used for filtration,especially in removing ripples from rectified waveform.
It is used to get tuned frequency.
It is used as a motor starter.
It is also used in conjunction with a resistor to filter ripples in a rectifier circuit.”
DBB wrote @451:
The salt domes didn’t have a whole bunch of heat-generating stuff in them either. Brine in rock salt most certainly does flow, including toward heat. If you add a big source of heat you’re going to stress things; add enough heat and you can get steam. That’s why deep boreholes are certainly better than salt domes for the hot, short-lived waste isotopes.
China looked at a BN-800 also, but is building a CFR600 instead. Ground was broken just over 2 years ago.
The Australian Bushfires and Climate change has gotten some good press via Celebrities and Sports stars of late.
Russel Crowe wins a gong doesn’t show up he’s too busy fighting fires where he lives on Mid-Coast NSW. Pink donated $500,000 to Fire Appeals herself and so did others give that much.
https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/hollywood-actors-speak-out-for-bushfire-victims-at-golden-globes-20200106-p53p7j.html
What’s been happening, is still happening and will definitely continue for weeks and months ahead could not really be labelled “a natural disaster.” It’s not even a catastrophe – becasue those words fail to adequately describe what’s occurred so far. “Unprecedented” is another word that is insufficient to capture the full reality. I cannot describe it. No picture or video can do it justice in the scale of this.
Take West Australia, where fires have been going since December and the only sealed interstate road connecting to South Australia has been cut by fires for 8 days, leaving truckers and families stranded in their cars on the side of the road in 47C heat. That highway has been opened today temporarily but will be closed again. 9 fire fronts active for 6 weeks (?) now, having burnt out over 350,000 Hectares, 1350 square miles. Extends from the south coast up to the Gold fields of Kalgoolie. That’s a disaster but not even the tip of an iceberg.
In comparison the 2018 CA wildfires disaster burnt out 766,439 ha.
And in 2019 CA wildfires covered only 105,147 ha.
December 24th 2019
Yes, Australia has always had bushfires: but 2019 is like nothing we’ve seen before (summary)
Record low rainfall has contributed to a continent-scale emergency that has burned through more than 5 MILLION hectares and alarmed scientists, doctors and firefighters
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/25/factcheck-why-australias-monster-2019-bushfires-are-unprecedented
So that’s 5 million hectares on Xmas Eve – 2 weeks ago; well then it must be at least 7 million hectares by now.
This wiki page says it’s 6.3 million hectares
– 17 times the size of the 2018 CA wild fires.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_Australian_bushfire_season
Well as I said I think it’s now 7 million hectares or 27,000 square miles burnt across all states of Australia now starting in October
This equals 1/10th the State of Texas. Or more than the whole State of West Virginia @ 24,230 sq mi – Is that a lot?
And the fires are still burning. Hundred of them. With between 20 to 50 burning out of control from one moment to the next.
Kangaroo Island in South Australia, the third largest island in Australia, has burnt out 195,000 hectares in a few days, over one third of the island with several dead, dozens of homes, thousands of livestock killed, and a luxury hotel destroyed.
SMH Latest Bushfire News
Fire damage shuts Blue Mountains line to electric trains for months
A section of rail llne between Lithgow and Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains has suffered extensive damage from bushfires.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a $2 billion National Bushfire Recovery Fund to support the rebuilding of Australia after a horror fire season.
https://www.smh.com.au/topic/bushfires-5vj
3000 Defence force reserves have been called out to assist (like the national guard I suppose) and that has never bee done before!
3 naval vessels deployed full time.
Dozens of Military aircraft in use.
The Govt has opened up every Military Base from Brisbane (east coast QLD) down and across to Adelaide in South Australia for emergency support of fire victims and evacuees to stay and be cared for when there is no other places available via usual fire recovery safe places networks — food beds showers doctors etc — that too is a unprecedented step.
Livestock killed numbered at least 500,000 more likely to be above 1 million before long. Remember this is coming on the back of the most severe drought in history across much of Australia. The economic losses long term, the emergency responses, and the recovery will easily cost in the tens of $ Billions.
Coming Thursday and Friday severe fire conditions return with high 40s temps and strong winds across all the existing fire grounds. The dislocations will get even worse, and now the bureau of meteorology has just announced that fire conditions Australia wide are expected to get even worse into the coming months as the Fire season progresses all the way into April.
Honestly words fail me. Even knowing that sooner or later this is how bad things would get – with multiple extreme ‘weather’ events occurring simultaneously – doesn’t help one bit to handle the degree of shock and horror at how bad things can get so suddenly, so extreme, so very very fast, across so much of the country at the same time and then not stop happening!
These fires are unstoppable. There is very little the fire services can do. They’re ordered another 4 emergency water bombing aircraft to rent, but I doubt that can help except for saving some properties about to be burnt down. They won’t stop the fire fronts that have been happening the last several weeks.
They are not of this world.
ABC News 24 channel https://iview.abc.net.au/show/abc-news-24/
My best advice is to listen (and really hear) the stories people are telling about their experiences with these fires. Listen to the back drop of the political discussions in a country where half the Politicians are some of the most agressive climate change denying anti-science extremists in the world (and where many still are!!!)
Things need to change how we do things and how we think. (that’s a quick overview of many feedbacks. Some people are really angry, but everyone is frustrated. To deal with this like ‘grown ups’ almost everything needs to change everywhere over time but the sooner the better. It’s already too late to stop the coming impacts of massive climate change.
And it’s still only +1.3C – at +2C almost all of Australia will become un-liveable, not viable, in my opinion. Learn from Australia’s experience now is my best tip.
Via ABC News24 site – Academic scientists using previously published studies of data are estimating over 1 billion wildlife are dead or affected (likely to starve) as a result of the bush fires in NSW/VIC in south east of Australia thus far. Wildlife being reptiles, mammals, marsupials and birds. Then there’s other life like bees and insects lost all critical to the web of life.
zebra lied @460:
You were referred TWICE to a textbook section on power-factor correction, the second time here back @400. You dug until you found a textbook describing something else that fit your prejudices and claimed victory. You cannot recognize that it is inapplicable despite being told so, and even why.
Math is “childish ranting” now? You were tasked with doing a bit of trig (related to physics) here back @420. It appears you cannot even do trigonometry. This is exactly what I expected: you are innumerate. Had you been able to follow the trig the answer could have been a step on your way to understanding the point at issue, but you can’t.
Nobody can prove anything to you because you do not have the brains to understand the proofs, or even the point being made. “Ignorance is strength”, but you can’t build electric grids with it.
nigelj writes @461:
Nope, not that way. There’s 32,000 tons of uranium carried into the oceans every year by rivers, against perhaps 5000 tons required to meet 100% of current human energy consumption.† There’s enough to keep the whole world at at least a European level of energy consumption literally as long as Earth has a hydrological cycle.
Nuclear “waste” (most of which isn’t) is self-limiting because it decays. If you start with a chunk of Sr-90, in 30.1 years only half of it will still be Sr-90; in a century, only 10% of it will be. You reach an asymptotic level after about 100 years of production where you have roughly 43 years worth of it (30.1/ln(2)) in inventory and it is decaying away as fast as it’s generated.
There are a handful of fission products which are long-lived enough to keep building up, century after century. IIUC these number just two: Tc-99 and I-129. We have more than enough salt domes to put them away for tens of millions of years; it’s not like we need to mine them for salt with the oceans full of it.
Small leaks, not at all. Even big ones don’t seem to be a problem for long; the catfish living in the Chernobyl plant cooling ponds have grown old and huge because nobody’s catching them. If they were dying of cancer there wouldn’t be any fish living long enough to get that big.
If you have stuff that’s hot for more than a century but less than 1000 centuries, deep boreholes will put it away from anything living long enough to decay to harmlessness. That’s really the standard of care here: the world has lots of lead and arsenic and cadmium, but it can’t hurt you if you don’t come in contact with it. Ditto radioisotopes.
@463: Yes, that list of functions is correct. I’m not going to see if it’s exhaustive, though. Note that #9 is a subset of #5; a capacitor-start motor uses the capacitor to generate a phase shift between two different stator windings, creating a rotating magnetic field which gets the squirrel-cage rotor moving from a dead stop. Power-factor correction is also arguably a subset of #5.
† This of course assumes the use of fast-neutron breeder reactors, converting 99+% of all uranium into energy. Thermal spectrum reactors which consume 0.5-1% would require 2+ orders of magnitude as much. Even so, you’d have thousands of years before you ran low on dissolved uranium in seawater.
nigelj to zebra:
True all dat. Dat said, IMHO some of EP’s ideas are nuts. They’re just inextricably mixed with his otherwise impressive knowledge and skills. I only hope our due credit won’t go to his head. I urge him not to run for public office 8^}!
Regarding #464 on Australias bushfires this is relevant, if reading between the lines:
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/11/doubling-down-researchers-investigate-compound-climate-risks/
“Doubling down: Researchers investigate compound climate risks. Climate researchers are increasingly exploring risk potentials associated with compound climate change events….”
Engineer-Poet @463 — So I skimmed the report. But the salt formations east of Carlsbad NM are capped by 100 million year old impervious rock. There is no brine. And even so, nobody is going to use metal containers for the once-through nuclear pins. Encase in ceramics if thought necessary. That report states nothing about the actual WIPP practice.
Anyway, there is now a repository for the above ground storage of the once-through nuclear pins. It is in that general area. It will do to store the material until there are fast reactors to consume it.
James Lovelock interview after his 100th birthday:
RTWT.
zebra: As I recall, you said you didn’t know much about electricity yourself. So why do you conclude that what I said is incorrect?
AB: As I said, I’ve learned a lot from E-P (though’retained’ is another issue). I found his analysis compelling while yours sounded like legalese, literally comparing a capacitor’s vibrating molehill to a big-ol-honking motor’s mountain of energy flow.
I got pissed at E-P and pissed at myself that I was going to jump in on E-P’s side. In that frame of mind I did an inferior job. Next time I’ll do better.
I looked up supercapacitor efficiency. 95%
On rote learning: I was seriously good at it in early childhood but I’ve abstained since then, primarily because I’m now bad at it. Instead, I retain flavors and hooks that lead to external data. Back when I programmed I kept the language reference between my arms so I could flip it to whichever page allowed me to keep typing.
Strange, though. When I took a consulting firm’s Progress test (name of language) I thought I did pretty poorly. Later I heard two guys whispering in the hall as they passed the room I was in that I’d scored the highest in the firm’s history.
Perhaps BPL is inversely correct. Am I DK on the good side of the graph?
Re #455 Barton Paul Levenson said K: We don’t need nuclear.
E-P: Wrong. We can’t survive WITH fossils.
BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
For him, yes. For my statement, no. This error is a result of your bias against regenerative solutions/simplicity and your ignorance WRT the same.
What I said is factually correct. We do not need nuclear to solve climate, and in fact would do it faster and more safely w/o nuclear. There is no bifucation and no fallacy: One is not a solution, one is.
Had I said something like, “Nuclear energy and nuclear materials of all kinds are evil and have no use in this world, period,” you would be correct.
Reality check for anyone tired of, and therrfore not taking part in the always roaring smalltalk hurricane of the chattering classes of the global village:
The only climate politics of any significance going on in the world today is 1) the ever faster growing enormous greenhouse gas emissions from the whole global capital accumulation project: business as extremely usual and 2) the colossal greenhouse gas emissions forming a substantial part of this, stemming from the US and to a far lesser degree other military-industrial complexes involved in a growing number of wars over the remaining oil and gas reserves, and now fast moving towards a new phase of the total imperialist world war, which started in june to august 1914.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/06/america-escalates-its-democratic-oil-war-in-the-near-east/
The smoke clouds from the australian part of the escalating climate catastrophe can now be seen clouding the sun from 6000 kms up in the air over Chile and Argentina, 12000 kms away from Australia. Half a billion animals there dead so far. Most of Asia and Siberia are recording temperatures twenty degrees C above the climatic normal 1981-2010. Northern Europe, east Greenland, central to eastern parts of the US and Canada plus the whole Antarctica “only” eight to twelve degrees C above the same normal.
Everything now points towards the inevitable conclusion: capitalism is the slowly evolving collapse of humankind and the sixth major extinction since life evolved on earth around three billion years ago. Discussing minor details in this won’t change anything, not even the slightest bit. The only thing which could have stopped this before it was too late, is carbon fee and dividend as proposed by James Hansen many years ago. I continue to say this, but only like a pilot on The Titanic talking to completely deaph ears, and while crying without any hope whatsoever.
As his soulmate Rex Tillerson said about Trump: “He is a fucking moron”. But unfortnuately he is far from alone, there are lots and lots of morons out there, beginning with his fake and just as corrupt opponents in the 3/4 republican party, the socalled democrats.
#Solutions: Simplicity, living within Nature, using Nature’s own principles to enhance, not replace, Nature. https://www.facebook.com/wesley.roe.56/posts/10157803448214593
The solution is not #tech, but #TEK – Traditional (aborigine) Ecological Knowledge).
#Permaculture
Do be aware (tell your friends) there are numerous FAKE FUNDRAISING SCAMS already. Be careful – this page can helps people not to make such mistakes.
Australia’s devastating fires are still burning. Here’s how you can help
The bushfires, which have been burning since September, have killed at least 25 people, destroyed 2,000 homes and killed an estimated 500 million animals. In all, about 15 million acres have burned across the country – an area roughly the size of West Virginia.***
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/australias-devastating-fires-are-still-burning-heres-how-you-can-help/ar-BBYIiAo
*** You heard it here first folks – https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2019/12/forced-responses-dec-2019/comment-page-10/#comment-753840
I don’t exaggerate anything ever.
Mal Adapted writes @469:
<shrug> If you’ve got better ones that can do the job in the next 20 years (and 20 years is already taking WAY too long, since we should have been done 10 years ago), get ’em out here.
Killian puts me back into “I’m from Missouri” mode @474:
The IPCC says otherwise:
There are currently NO countries which have decarbonized fossil-based energy systems using any combination of RE or CCS, and the poster child for such a transition (Germany) is failing badly. If you claim otherwise, SHOW ME.
France, Sweden and Ontario decarbonized their electricity almost by accident by going nuclear.
Assertion which denies massive evidence to the contrary. You may believe it, but it’s still a lie.
Yes, yours is definitely a solution. A Final Solution (see next comment).
Killian shows his fascist desires @476:
Yes, it had to be something like this, didn’t it?
Tell us, Kill-Ian, how many people can be supported by said permaculture systems? (Remember, you also have to supply things like materials for what wears out, and fuel to keep warm in winter wherever it gets cold.) We already know that this number is VASTLY smaller than the number of people currently living; the number of e.g. dwellings we can heat using storable, renewable wood is far too few to house everyone.
Your scheme requires that some billions of people die. Presumably, they’d have to die very soon because all the systems that currently supply their food and shelter and warmth would be replaced by far-less-productive permacultures almost right away. Do you see yourself as the one who picks who lives and who dies?
Thomas @477: I have always taken you straight, no chaser. Now tell us: is this crisis sufficient to move Australia to use its own uranium to supply its electricity without fossil fuels?
To the mods: I have a reply to a libelous screed from Killian which is disappearing into some sort of filter-limbo. I would very much appreciate it if you would dig there and rescue it.
MAL Adapated @469, agreed, and that is precisely why I reinforce his engineering and I’m gently critical (in other comments) of his political ideas. Nothing like a bit of operant conditioning. Ha ha.You seem quite smart so you will understand.
Al Bundy @473 “On rote learning: I was seriously good at it in early childhood but I’ve abstained since then, primarily because I’m now bad at it. Instead, I retain flavors and hooks that lead to external data. ”
I was good at rote leaning as well. School is the time for rote learning. You need a lot of basic information to navigate life. You can’t understand a computer if you don’t have basic terms memorised. As you get older rote learning gets less important, because you “know where to look” and use flavours and hooks. And filofax organisers. You have enough basics memorised to get by.
Our education system moved away from rote leaning of facts, times tables even, and has downplayed the importance of spelling and grammar. Its been a disaster. When kids get to university they can’t even write a coherent, organised essay and have needed remedial classes. Professors are disgusted and fed up. Our PISA rankings have dropped badly. That said, many other skills are equally important like reasoning and critical thinking, creative problem solving, lateral thinking.
I’m older now, and have no interest in learning stuff like names and dates, and suck at memorising dates for some reason. No problem with technical data. I have a memory like an elephant for what counts. You gotta figure out whats important.
Careful you aren’t developing dunning kruger. A few symptoms are appearing :)
Karsten V. Johansen @475, carbon fee and dividend is quite good in principle, except the problem is America has this huge anti tax ideology, particularly the GOP. You might be be better off promoting something like the GND, so a government infrastructure package along with environmental regulations.
Rex Tillerson. Master of understatement.
In the right corner, we have nuclear power, in the left corner Killians simplification. In the changing rooms renewable energy is getting ready. In the seats the bewildered public deciding which one of these pills they want to swallow, or what combination, and what size pills. What will they do? I’m pretty sure I know.
#473 Al Bundy,
“I found his analysis compelling”
Do me a favor and show me his “analysis”… I have yet to see any analysis addressing and contradicting what I said.
In my world, “understanding the physics” means being able to explain it in your own words. He hasn’t… the citation I gave is an excellent example; it goes through the math and gives a concise, clear description of what is happening physically.
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/315/Waves/node5.html
Most EE I’ve ever worked with (admittedly in an academic setting, where comprehension matters), if they thought that I was misapplying the concept in the case of reactive power…
… would be eager to explain what is wrong with what I said. It would take a few sentences at most, don’t you think? I asked EP many times to describe what the capacitors were doing if they weren’t storing energy…still no answer.
Now, AB, in your more lucid moments, you would be quite capable of following the reasoning here, so if you want to accept the challenge, give it some thought. (Note that EP has agreed with all these points.)
1. There’s a factory with lots of electric motors.
2. The motors, being inductive, create reactive power.
3. The reactive power heats up the transmission lines (including transformers).
4. Installing the capacitors results in the transmission lines not heating up.
Forget metaphors…what are the capacitors doing?
K 474: BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
For him, yes. For my statement, no. This error is a result of your bias against regenerative solutions/simplicity and your ignorance WRT the same.
BPL: Dear God, you are a stupid man. The fallacy of bifurcation I referred to had NOTHING to do with your ideas about simplicity. I was simply referring to the idea that we had to have either coal or nuclear. Can’t you read?
Re #455 Barton Paul Levenson said K: We don’t need nuclear.
E-P: Wrong. We can’t survive WITH fossils.
BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
AB: I don’t see it. E-P has laid out his case in depth: fossils kill, renewables fail, and nuclear, well, remember the grafiti, “Hell no! We won’t glow!”?
E-P probably spray paints, “Is nuclear power dangerous?” in front.
_________
Thomas: I don’t exaggerate anything ever
AB: Oops, that’s the first time!
475 – Karsten VJ
“The only thing which could have stopped this before it was too late, is carbon fee and dividend as proposed by James Hansen many years ago.”
Yeah, that’s the ticket. Another tax that will save the world. Oh, and just give total control of the world to the One World Goobermint – that will surely turn the planet into utopia. And AGW is all DJT’s fault – he’s been in office for less than 3 years and HE IS THE PROBLEM. ALL other nations can do nothing about AGW because of DJT.
ROFLMAO
“…and killed an estimated 500 million animals. In all, about 15 million acres have burned across the country…”
I’d believe that 500,000,000 number if it includes insects – might even be low – but for larger animals, let’s see some scientific data backing up that big scary VERY ROUND number.
On the Aussie acreage burned, that’s a lot. Much of it is due to poor land use practices (not burning or removing brush, etc), and sadly, to arson.
For comparison to North America, from Wikipedia: “From 2007 to 2017, wildfires burned an average of 6.2 and 6.6 million acres/year in the U.S. and Canada, respectively.” So, around 12 million per year average.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wildfires#North_America
Big fires in Alaska too:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/08/10/five-million-acres-have-now-burned-in-alaskan-wildfires-this-year/
More than 8,000,000 acres burned in each of 9 years in the USA since 2004 – not sure if this includes Alaska. 90% human caused:
https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-wildfires
Re #486 nigelj said In the right corner, we have nuclear power
Hmmm… just nuclear power.
in the left corner Killians simplification.
Hmm… yet here we have an attempt to diminish simplification by attatching the concept to a single individual.
You have never, and will never, have anything to add. A years-long intentional act on your part. You, sir, are a dishonest man, a bit disgusting.
Stop posting.
Re #480 Engineer-Poet said Killian shows his fascist desires
You say a lot of stupid shit, but that takes the cake. You have just finalized what most here already know: You talk out of your ass.
From M-W: fascism : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
As practiced by Mussolini, State/Corporate control of society. That’s what YOU promote, you unintentionally ironic fool. Corporate and gov’t control of energy is a key aspect of controlling the socio-politico-economic lives of The People.
Calling me fascist shows just what an empty shill you are.
The solution is not #tech, but #TEK – Traditional (aborigine) Ecological Knowledge).
#Permaculture
Yes, it had to be something like this, didn’t it?
Yes. I observe and analyze, unlike your rote regurgitation of bullshit.
Tell us, Kill-Ian
LOL… Yes, child?
how many people can be supported by said permaculture systems?
I minimum of 12 billion, depending on how far we allow climate to get out of control. But, then, if the world is permacultural, we’ll be back to <300ppm in anywhere from 20 to 100 years.
Your scheme requires that some billions of people die.
Because you say so? You’re an idiot. 2/3 of the world already lives simply, liar.
Re #489 Al Bundy said BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
AB: I don’t see it.
He does. See his asinine screed against simplicity… and the venom of it. I am very good at outing fools. Their egos can never handle the direct naming of their stupidity and lies.
MR KIA @490 says that higher temperatures caused by global warming cant make forest fires worse. What a clueless clown.
480 – EP
“Tell us, Kill-Ian, how many people can be supported by said permaculture systems?”
Can you trust his answer?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmJmRwDGk60
:)
455 Barton Paul Levenson says:
5 Jan 2020 at 6:50 AM
K: We don’t need nuclear.
E-P: Wrong. We can’t survive WITH fossils.
BPL: Note the fallacy of bifurcation.
I’m not stupid, you’re an ass making excuses. You included my statement. If you were only making a point about nuclear vs FFs, my comment is superfluous. The only interpretation that makes sense is you claiming we were both making the same mistake because we both stated exclusionary comments, or a bifurcated position.
Your mistake. How sad you must deflect.
Re: #479 Engineer-Poet said Killian puts me back into “I’m from Missouri” mode @474:
We do not need nuclear to solve climate
The IPCC says otherwise
Do you ask your dentist to repair your car engine? Your doctor to build your house? Appeal to Authority Fallacy.
Lie:
Nothing in that quote states nuclear is needed. It is stated as an option.
This is why I ignored you for so long; talking to nuclear freaks is every bit as useless as talking to climate denialists.
Lie: There are currently NO countries which have decarbonized fossil-based energy systems using any combination of RE or CCS, and the poster child for such a transition (Germany) is failing badly. If you claim otherwise, SHOW ME.
Stuff your Straw Man.
and in fact would do it faster and more safely w/o nuclear.
Assertion which denies massive evidence to the contrary.
Fact. There is nothing keeping any household, community or country from transitioning to regenerative systems within 5 years. Nuclear, in the best case scenarios, would never get to 100% of needs.
You may believe it, but it’s still a lie.
There is no bifucation and no fallacy: One is not a solution, one is.
Yes, yours is definitely a solution. A Final Solution (see next comment).
Correct. Indefinite abundance for all.
You are useless. Your presence here has destroyed the usefulness of these fora. Your intent, I am certain.
Now, go eff yourself. Done with you, solutions denier/Capitalism enabler/catastrophy creator.
zebra @487 says “The motors, being inductive, create reactive power.” This doesn’t sound right. Motors actually require reactive power for the magnetic field to function properly. In this instance capacitors in the circuit are supplying reactive power to the motor (simplifying it a bit). Refer AC Power on wikipedia, or technopedia, this is what it says.
#490 Such a sad case. Your name reads Knows Nothing at All.
#489 This is not the time for you to give up the drink, so carry on.
#481 “Now tell us: is this crisis sufficient to move Australia to use its own uranium to supply its electricity without fossil fuels?”
No way. No chance. Surely you don’t think these or any other bush fires or climate events are going to seriously change anything going forward anywhere.
#475 “The only thing which could have stopped this before it was too late, is carbon fee and dividend”
If that’s the silver bullet solution then those proposing it surely don’t understand the cause nor the scale of the problem. May as well all go out and buy ourselves a brand new Tesla instead.
https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/01/fossil-fuel-political-giving-outdistances-renewables-13-to-one/
“Fossil fuel political giving (in America) outdistances renewables 13 to one. During the latest midterm election cycle, the fossil fuel industry paid at least $359 million for federal campaign donations and lobbying….”
Knew it was a huge difference, but not that huge. Sad.