Global Warming | Fact or Fiction?

[Alceste]

Although, I think it would be a mistake to assume that renewables could or even should provide the same level of cheap, abundant energy (especially for transportation) that mainstream conservative and liberal capitalists are expecting to maintain our debt-based economic system....which can't exist without continually growing. That's why there are so many dead-enders on the right who have already decided to double down and go for broke by going after the deepest and foulest reserves of fossil fuels left on the planet.

For electricity needs, solar and wind power are not going to provide the baseload power that is done now by coal, oil and gas. And, if we factor in resource depletion and growing water shortages around the world -- the point should be made that we need more than alternative fuels. We need a completely different way of life, that isn't centered on consumption and waste. Sustainability for the long term is going to depend on reducing world population and zero growth economics.

Totally agree. Permaculture is getting quite trendy where I live. My aim is to be independent from the global, growth-based and fully engaged in a local, sustainable economy by 2020.

 

[painted wolf]

From this weeks Science Friday radio broadcast on the Solar Industry.

Last year, our industry manufactured, shipped, installed and operating 17 gigawatts of solar power. Now, for your listeners, what a gigawatt, that's equivalent of 17 - what 17 nuclear power plants put out in the middle of the day. Now, of course, because solar is generating this power in the daytime when the demand in the grid is high and power is very expensive, that power is worth a whole lot more than power that's delivered in the middle of the night. So 17 nuclear power plants in one year manufactured, shipped and installed.

Today, panels are between a dollar and a dollar fifty a watt for the panels, and systems - system prices are very - depending if it's residential or utility scale. But what - on the utility scale systems, what's amazing is solar today is less expensive than a new nuclear power plant. We're more affordable for daytime peaking power than a peaking gas plant, for example, from an aeroderivative gas turbine, those - the cost of power on utilities and all the utilities around the country is the same thing.
They're all - when do they need that power? They need it on a hot summer afternoon. And that power from the turbines cost 25 to 30 cents a kilowatt hour. Solar is half that cost. So solar is economic today for peak power in America.

one of the myths of solar is that we need some, you know, new battery solution in order for solar to get to scale. That's actually untrue. I was formally a - I'm an electrical engineer and formally a transmission planning engineer and operations guy for a large utility, so I know how the grid works. What happens is if you look at why all these utilities around the country are overloaded in the middle of the day, and we saw that with the record heat due to the global warming that's happened in Texas and back east, it - the electric power need is actually driven by sunlight because, number one, people are up in the day in that office.
But number two, that's when the air-conditioning load kicks on, and that makes a huge strain on the grid. And the third factor is there's a lot of evaporation in agricultural conditions, so you have a lot of water pumping, and those pumps will draw a lot of power. So what happens is there's a perfect correlation between sunlight and energy demand. And so the demand almost doubles every day. In the middle of the night, it's very low, and then, it goes - it almost doubles in the day, and then same thing happens, it goes back down.
So when you put solar into the grid, solar uniquely matches load. Solar also has the nice attribute of being modular. So it can go on customer rooftops throughout the grid. You don't have these giant systems. You can have giant systems, but they're, you know, part of the solution. And then a third is rooftop and a third is small distributed systems. So it actually helps support the grid. It provides a benefit. Solar can get to, you know, 20, 30 percent of the grid without any storage.
In fact today in Germany, Germany, with half the sun of Las Vegas, is the largest solar market today. And in southern Germany, in Bavaria, there are - in the summer, there are days when 40 percent of the grid is operating on solar - 40 percent, and the same thing is true in places - areas of Spain. They have no battery storage. They're able to operate the grid. The grid is absolutely fine and able - because of this condition where - when as the demand picks up, the distributor of resources are there to support it.

Solar Sector At War Over Cheap Chinese Panels : NPR

If Germany can manage it why not the USA? You can't honestly say that Germany is a better place for sun than California or Texas.

wa:do

 

[painted wolf]

I took a look...just saying..

'Antarctica will continue to experience excess surface uv.'

Ozone values remain below 1964-1980 levels.

from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) 2010

Blaming the U.S....?
It's more than refrigerant fluids and Styrofoam.

I didn't blame the US.... but we were contributing more than most of the nations faced with the direct problem. You can't say that a country like 1980's Argentina or Iceland was a huge contributor.

Yes, the layer is still thin... but the hole is essentially gone. At it's peak it was almost the size of, if not larger than Antarctica itself.

But this isn't about the ozone layer... unless you want to use it as an example of the fact that we can actually manage to get together as a planet and make decisions for all our benefit.

wa:do

 

[Alceste]

From this weeks Science Friday radio broadcast on the Solar Industry.




Solar Sector At War Over Cheap Chinese Panels : NPR

If Germany can manage it why not the USA? You can't honestly say that Germany is a better place for sun than California or Texas.

wa:do

Germany is the model for where I think every country should go. They have really embraced micro-generation. I read a big article on the subject a while ago. I'll see if I can find it.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Germany is the model for where I think every country should go. They have really embraced micro-generation. I read a big article on the subject a while ago. I'll see if I can find it.

Oh I agree. I cannot just walk across Germany's border and get a job.

I cannot just walk into Germany's hospital and receive treatment.

I cannot send my children to German schools just because they walked to school.

I cannot move there and bring a Harley Davidson with me unless I pay an import tax. It is usually 100%. So a 15,000 dollar Harley cost a German citizens 30,000.

You don't see any Walmart style stores there selling cheap Chinese stuff.

 

[painted wolf]

Oh I agree. I cannot just walk across Germany's border and get a job.

I cannot just walk into Germany's hospital and receive treatment.

I cannot send my children to German schools just because they walked to school.

I cannot move there and bring a Harley Davidson with me unless I pay an import tax. It is usually 100%. So a 15,000 dollar Harley cost a German citizens 30,000.

You don't see any Walmart style stores there selling cheap Chinese stuff.

And these things prevent us from investing in solar how?

wa:do

 

[Alceste]

Oh I agree. I cannot just walk across Germany's border and get a job.

I cannot just walk into Germany's hospital and receive treatment.

I cannot send my children to German schools just because they walked to school.

I cannot move there and bring a Harley Davidson with me unless I pay an import tax. It is usually 100%. So a 15,000 dollar Harley cost a German citizens 30,000.

You don't see any Walmart style stores there selling cheap Chinese stuff.

You can't honestly be blaming Mexican immigrants for America's failure to embrace low carbon technologies, can you?

 

[work in progress]

Totally agree. Permaculture is getting quite trendy where I live. My aim is to be independent from the global, growth-based and fully engaged in a local, sustainable economy by 2020.

And hopefully, if economic and financial collapse leads to a complete breakdown of society as early as 2020, such small sustainable communities will be far enough off the beaten path to be noticed by hungry mobs migrating out of major cities after grocery shipments stop arriving at the supermarkets and restaurants. I'm not sure how safe a safe place will be in the event of a rapid collapse similar to what has happened when previous civilizations collapsed in the past.

 

[work in progress]

From this weeks Science Friday radio broadcast on the Solar Industry.

Solar Sector At War Over Cheap Chinese Panels : NPR

If Germany can manage it why not the USA? You can't honestly say that Germany is a better place for sun than California or Texas.

wa:do

I think we have more to be concerned about than dealing with a flood of cheap solar panels made in China. For one thing, China already has close to a monopoly on rare earth elements that are becoming increasingly essential for the production of electronics and solar panels:

"Demand for rare earth elements has increased by more than 50 percent in the last decade, and is expected to rise further" says Professor Paul Henderson, Honorary Professor of Mineralogy at University College London, and chair of the drafting group. REE are increasingly being used in the production of low-carbon technologies such as wind turbines, electric traction motors and hybrid vehicles, as well as countless other applications from LCD and plasma screens to jet engines.
With most deposits located outside of Europe, there has been concern over future supply of materials vital to the EU economy. "Geological scarcity in absolute terms is unlikely to be a concern" says Professor Henderson. "But the technical, financial and environmental challenges of establishing new mines could lead to disruptions in supply. Overcoming these challenges will take some time, as will reopening pre-existing mines. It is this which leads us to be concerned about future supply."
There are environmental considerations too, with REE production using a great deal of energy, and most REE mines being open cast. Geoscientists play a vital role, not only in identifying sources of REE and extracting useful ores, but in ensuring that as little damage as possible is done to the environment during extraction. They can also make an important contribution in addressing questions about security of supply and future demand for REE.
​

It seems that the complete process of building renewable energy technologies also has high environmental costs. Many of these rare earth elements would also be essential in the building of 3rd and 4th generation nuclear power reactors that are tossed up as the salvation by the abundant energy crowd. I'm not saying we shouldn't be going in the direction of renewables...and I would like to see more work put into geothermal, offshore wind, and even the space-based geosynchronous orbit located solar panel satellites that were proposed at least as far back as my 1970's Popular Science magazines.

What I think is a mistake, is just to the "green capitalist" route advanced by Al Gore & associates -- who think that it's just a matter of changing power sources and setting up a mind-numbingingly complex system of carbon credits and carbon offsets. Surviving upcoming threats will demand a whole new way of life, or the typical bloody fight for whatever's left in a desperate dog-eat-dog fight for survival by the people who are left standing after a collapse of globalization.

 

[Thief]

I didn't blame the US.... but we were contributing more than most of the nations faced with the direct problem. You can't say that a country like 1980's Argentina or Iceland was a huge contributor.

Yes, the layer is still thin... but the hole is essentially gone.

If the ozone is now less than it was in 1980...how is it gone now?

At it's peak it was almost the size of, if not larger than Antarctica itself.

But this isn't about the ozone layer... unless you want to use it as an example of the fact that we can actually manage to get together as a planet and make decisions for all our benefit.

wa:do

That layer is the tip of the ice berg....literally.

The real culprit is the use of carbon.
And the one item we could be using to reduce it we are killing by the millions, even as I type this.

The deforestation of Africa has been a long standing news front.
Trees breath the co2.
Where does all that hardwood go?
Last I heard 50% goes to Japan.
They turn it into chopsticks.

Deforestation rate is higher in the U.S.
There is one last valley of old tree growth in this country.
It's called Opal Valley, Oregon....3million acres.
Sounds like a lot...but it can be felled in 20years.
It would take 400years to regrow it.

Want to stop co2?
Never cut another tree.

Ever hear of a Bloom box?...it's coming...sooner the better.

 

[painted wolf]

Carbon only harms ozone in the form of CFCs, CCL4 and a few other compounds. They do not occur naturally.
Ozone Layer Protection Glossary | Ozone Layer Protection | US EPA

CO2 is the carbon form that increases the greenhouse effect.

wa:do

 

[Reverend Rick]

And these things prevent us from investing in solar how?

wa:do

These things keep us from paying a living wage to American workers who could produce solar panels.

The German's don't worry about competing globally because they don't let cheap products enter their country.

 

[Reverend Rick]

You can't honestly be blaming Mexican immigrants for America's failure to embrace low carbon technologies, can you?

No, I blame our own country. To be fair, you brought up Germany. If we want to have high wages and superior products and afford social services like Germany does, we would need to adopt their policies as well.

The world is a mess because there is no leadership.

Becoming part of the global economy is a big mistake.

Germany is strong, but they would be even stronger if they kept their D-mark and stayed out of the European union.

 

[painted wolf]

These things keep us from paying a living wage to American workers who could produce solar panels.

The German's don't worry about competing globally because they don't let cheap products enter their country.

We have American workers producing solar panels right now.

We produced 17 gigawats of solar panels last year... that's 17 nuclear power plants worth of solar production.

wa:do

 

[Reverend Rick]

We have American workers producing solar panels right now.

We produced 17 gigawats of solar panels last year... that's 17 nuclear power plants worth of solar production.

wa:do

I'm thinking of the government's involvment with a bankrupt solar panel company named Solandra.

 

[painted wolf]

I think we have more to be concerned about than dealing with a flood of cheap solar panels made in China. For one thing, China already has close to a monopoly on rare earth elements that are becoming increasingly essential for the production of electronics and solar panels:

It's definitely a problem.

It seems that the complete process of building renewable energy technologies also has high environmental costs. Many of these rare earth elements would also be essential in the building of 3rd and 4th generation nuclear power reactors that are tossed up as the salvation by the abundant energy crowd. I'm not saying we shouldn't be going in the direction of renewables...and I would like to see more work put into geothermal, offshore wind, and even the space-based geosynchronous orbit located solar panel satellites that were proposed at least as far back as my 1970's Popular Science magazines.

The good thing about it though is that once you have the solar and wind plants up, the rare earth minerials can be recycled from old panels and generators into newer ones as needed.

The big problem with rare earth minerals is that we are a use and dispose society... we should be recycling technology and reclaiming the rare mineral components. Our landfills are already a treasure trove of metals like copper, tin, gold and so on.

What I think is a mistake, is just to the "green capitalist" route advanced by Al Gore & associates -- who think that it's just a matter of changing power sources and setting up a mind-numbingingly complex system of carbon credits and carbon offsets. Surviving upcoming threats will demand a whole new way of life, or the typical bloody fight for whatever's left in a desperate dog-eat-dog fight for survival by the people who are left standing after a collapse of globalization.

Of couse it's not that simple... but it's a vital step. Unless we replace carbon as our only significant energy source then that dog eat dog you mention will come all the sooner.

wa:do

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

So, if there was 100 to 200 million years after a major extinction of life on Earth to rebuild, would there be another flourishing of plants and animals during that time? It's anyone's guess, but I wouldn't bet on it!

I would, not that it would matter much as even I don't expect to be here then. Personally I think the evidence suggests that given enough time, life would return but as you said, its anybodys guess.

The UU's are usually the most liberal church in town wherever they are located. That's why that clown, who had all of the books and videos of O'Reilly, Beck and Limbaugh, went on a shooting rampage at the Unitarian church in Knoxville Tennessee, a few years ago. But, being a liberal in the deep south might not be exactly the same as in more liberal locations.

Not sure why you brought up Knoxville but since you did. I happened to be traveling to Knoxville on business a couple weeks after the shooting. The children in my UU Church in Houston had me take a canvas with their palm prints on it to give to the kids in Knoxville. I find it very strange that you would suggest that southern liberals are somehow less than northern liberals. They certainly feel pain the same.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

The real culprit is the use of carbon.

Want to stop co2?
Never cut another tree.

I hesitate saying this because it's likely to be taken out of context but what the hell.

Deforestation is bad, yes it is. But, cutting down trees isn't necessarily bad for the environment. In the Amazon where they cut down rain forest and then burn it they are taking all the carbon in the trees and releasing it back into the atmosphere. This is bad for the environment of course.

But what about cutting down trees in the US for paper and furnature? You see, trees are vast storehouse of carbon, the suck it out of the atmosphere and store it. But as a tree grows its intack of carbon slows. Younger trees take more carbon out of the atmosphere. Now when you cut a tree down and make something out of it, what happens to the carbon? It stays in the wood. So if you plant trees, allow them to mature, cut them down and make something out of them, then plant more trees in their place, guess what? You are helping to scrub more carbon out of the atmosphere.

So, deforestation is bad, but logging of timber in already deforested land is good so long as new trees are planted.

 

[painted wolf]

I hesitate saying this because it's likely to be taken out of context but what the hell.

Deforestation is bad, yes it is. But, cutting down trees isn't necessarily bad for the environment. In the Amazon where they cut down rain forest and then burn it they are taking all the carbon in the trees and releasing it back into the atmosphere. This is bad for the environment of course.

But what about cutting down trees in the US for paper and furnature? You see, trees are vast storehouse of carbon, the suck it out of the atmosphere and store it. But as a tree grows its intack of carbon slows. Younger trees take more carbon out of the atmosphere. Now when you cut a tree down and make something out of it, what happens to the carbon? It stays in the wood. So if you plant trees, allow them to mature, cut them down and make something out of them, then plant more trees in their place, guess what? You are helping to scrub more carbon out of the atmosphere.

So, deforestation is bad, but logging of timber in already deforested land is good so long as new trees are planted.

Actually one way to increase carbon sequestration is to cut down trees and let them decay naturally while planting new trees to replace them. Carbon needs to pulled from the atmosphere and returned to the ground.

Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest has been doing long term studies in the way forests cycle nutrients especially nitrogen and carbon. They have found profoundly important differences between clear cutting, selective cutting and removal of trees vs. letting them decay in place.
Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study Front Page
Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

wa:do

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Actually one way to increase carbon sequestration is to cut down trees and let them decay naturally while planting new trees to replace them. Carbon needs to pulled from the atmosphere and returned to the ground.

Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest has been doing long term studies in the way forests cycle nutrients especially nitrogen and carbon. They have found profoundly important differences between clear cutting, selective cutting and removal of trees vs. letting them decay in place.
Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study Front Page
Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

wa:do

Sure, the natural way is almost always best. But doesn't making furniture also help by keeping the carbon out of the atmosphere? My point is that some lumber industry is ok for the environment.