Global Warming - How Valid and Serious?

[Julia]

O
If they do nothing, Joe Sixpack certainly ain't going to do it or pay for it. A point I am sorry to repeat ad nauseum.

Don't be sorry. It bears repeating. I will never remove that television image of Al Gore's house blazing with light in every window, plus dozens of lights outside, from my mind. Such utter hypocrisy. No matter, I guess it has made him pretty rich.

 

[Smurf1976]

thanks smurf,
ok - have it your way - some hydro as well ...

damned if I know where, lol - but somewhere , somehow , .. maybe.
and/or wind I guess. (as you suggested - but my subconscious discounted because of start up cost - sheesh - not that I've done any sums whatsoever)

probably because I've spent too much time sailing - doldrums - becalmed etc

Lots of good hydro sites. I'm aware of about 13,000 MW that could be developed in Qld, NSW, Vic, SA (with NSW having the largest share). That's mainly pumped storage which is what's needed to fit with a wind / nuclear / geothermal / solar system.

Wind is surprisingly economic by the way, especially as part of an integrated wind / hydro system. Expect to hear another big wind farm (about 140 MW) announced as going ahead by Roaring 40's pretty soon...

 

[2020hindsight]

1 . Lots of good hydro sites.

2. ... another big wind farm (about 140 MW) announced as going ahead by Roaring 40's pretty soon...

2. Like I say, ok for the roaring 40's, not so good for the flukey trade winds and/or tropics.

1. viable dams ?–
you’d have to give me some examples to convince me. (PS but I hear you about the energy storage bit)
Only "decent" (indecent? sheesh) dam I’m aware of is Traveston (Mary R , 150km north of Bris, not far from Kevin Rudd’s home town of Nambour) – Here’s an aerial picture I posted – you can see how flat the land is by the meandering of the river - takes out a stack of beautiful prime agricultural land - kill the farmers' livelihoods, so that the people of Brisbane can water their roses - instead of getting some tanks – THINK TANKS as the slogan goes - average depth about 1.5m (approx) - probably run 3 or 4 light bulbs

PS Since that has apparently been planned without sufficient weight for / consideration of power generation, is it fair to say that someone in govt isn't listening? - which was your initial point lol! (I believe there were better alternatives up in the hills further - but that probably would have drowned the local State Representatives farm )

traveston dam :-
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=244765&highlight=traveston#post244765

PS A poem I wrote about Traveston :-

Traveston Dam was an issue put to Queenslanders at the last election. - one person / farmer / townsperson = one vote . (them's the rules in a democracy)

TRAVESTON DAM

They say I'm in the flooded zone
they say my farm will "die"
they wave this deed - my land is .."gone"
insist I say "goodbye"
praps I'll fight for a correction
praps I'll build a bludy moat
maybe "drawbridge" all directions
maybe ? waterproof the goat.?

So it went to an election
where I only had one vote
"Should they drown MY dad's selection?"
(sheesh - I muster from a boat?? )
ahhh... the travesty is mine alone
I'm "low-life" and you're "high"
but ... Traveston's my heart , my home..
and this flood is from mine eye.

PS :- some of your previous suggestions, carbon tax/penalty on airline tickets – encourage trains etc – cut back on fossil fuels obviously – all thought provoking, and (almost) all of which I agree with
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=238848&highlight=traveston#post238848

 

[2020hindsight]

PS Another slogan there "Don't Murray the Mary"

 

[Aussiejeff]

Am I looking at it right? I mean, only the white area is actual ice I assume? Or is the purple, red etc also ice?

The colored/purple/red areas show the concentrations (0-100%) of sea ice.

... and here's a link to the ice shelf about to let go in the Antarctic....

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM2U5THKHF_index_1.html#subhead1

 

[2020hindsight]

The colored/purple/red areas show the concentrations (0-100%) of sea ice.

... and here's a link to the ice shelf about to let go in the Antarctic....

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM2U5THKHF_index_1.html#subhead1

AJ - thanx - I think lol. - bludy terrifying in fact.

undeniable evidence - except around here

On the news tonight as well.

TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE ? THAT IS THE QUESTION


PS This article originally posted almost 2 years ago, possibly updated since (?) either way - pretty sobering ..
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn9903

Climate Change - Learn more in our continually updated special report.

Climate change is with us. A decade ago, it was conjecture. Now the future is unfolding before our eyes. Canada's Inuit see it in disappearing Arctic ice and permafrost. The shantytown dwellers of Latin America and Southern Asia see it in lethal storms and floods. Europeans see it in disappearing glaciers, forest fires and fatal heat waves.

Scientists see it in tree rings, ancient coral and bubbles trapped in ice cores. These reveal that the world has not been as warm as it is now for a millennium or more. The three warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998; 19 of the warmest 20 since 1980. And Earth has probably never warmed as fast as in the past 30 years - a period when natural influences on global temperatures, such as solar cycles and volcanoes should have cooled us down. Studies of the thermal inertia of the oceans suggest that there is more warming in the pipeline.

Climatologists reporting for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say we are seeing global warming caused by human activities and there are growing fears of feedbacks that will accelerate this warming. ...

 

[wayneL]

You see 2020, the problem around here is that a lot of people actually have intelligence, and look to various sources of information and come to a balanced conclusion.

After WW2, most folks are wise to the Goebbels style propaganda and will eventually see through it, as they do with the now discredited "An Inconvenient Truth".

The truth is that the AGW protagonists have been caught out lieing through their teeth, both explicitly with manipulated data and implicitly by omission of all the substantial evidence to the contrary.

The only recourse to discredited imbeciles such as yourself, is to caricaturize others as screwy with pathetic with puerile statements that are more common in kindergarten than a in a forum used by intelligent adults. This is the epitome of propaganda.

It is done on a higher level by threatening to jail any of those who disagree.

It is a disgrace and you are a disgrace for bringing it here.

If you are adult enough, which I seriously doubt, we can carry on the debate based on evidence and without misrepresentation of others position. If not, and you continue to drag the debate to the intellectual level of a two year old, I can see this thread being closed and/or other action.

Now please do us all a favour and lift you EQ above single figures... PLEASE!

Jokes, satire and sarcasm is fine up to a point, but there is a level past where it is not debate, but just childish... and you are well past that.

 

[2020hindsight]

The truth is that the AGW protagonists have been caught out lieing .....

ahh back to AGW instead of just GW -


PS Wayne - you're all over the place - admit it

 

[Whiskers]

Jokes, satire and sarcasm is fine up to a point, but there is a level past where it is not debate, but just childish... and you are well past that.

Child-like I think is the proper term. Childish is derogatory to children.

Couldn't help myself with that one.


Btw, you two are still going hammer and tongs at each other on this. :

 

[wayneL]

ahh back to AGW instead of just GW -


PS Wayne - you're all over the place - admit it

Re your EQ

I rest my case.

 

[Smurf1976]

1. viable dams ?–
you’d have to give me some examples to convince me. (PS but I hear you about the energy storage bit)

Here's a few (all figures are approximate only):

Qld. Herbert (500 MW natural flow). Burdekin Falls (500 MW natural flow, 500 MW pumped), Mt Byron (1000 MW pumped).

NSW. Budd's Mare (186 MW pumped with some natural flows), Apsley (814 MW pumped with significant natural flows too), Wandilla (1000 MW pumped), Boundary (1000 MW pumped), Yonkers (1000 MW pumped), Windy Creek (1000 MW pumped), McKeahnies (1000 MW pumped), Prussian Flat (1000 MW pumped).

Vic. Ada River (1000 MW pumped), Trawool (1000 MW pumped), Wilhelmina (1000 MW pumped), Mitchell (20 MW natural flow only).

SA. Warren (400 MW pumped / natural).

WA. Serpentine (400 MW mostly pumped).

I'll leave Tasmania out since I'm not about to start that debate here. Yes there's "another Snowy" and more that could be built. But it would only happen in a radically different political climate to the present and it doesn't form part of my thinking on how a national geothermal / nuclear / wind / solar / hydro system could work. But if we really do get desperate for anything that works then I think we'll see the debate revisited.

NT has a few schemes that could be built. They're generally very high water volume, very low head situations that don't really produce a lot of power. They could be significant locally though.

I walked home today so I've done something to help the CO2 (well, a little bit). Only trouble is, I've had rather a lot of trouble getting the fire going this evening (it's going now though) so a bit of warming would have been nice. It's been working fine lately but wasn't keen on going tonight - probably something to do with the wood being wet.

 

[2020hindsight]

thanks Smurf - gee some serious alteration of the landscape there.
Are you saying that nuclear without hydro backup/storage is unviable?

I mean I'm resigned to the fact that the grandkids will have nuclear. Are they also definitely gonna have these dams you mention?

 

[Smurf1976]

thanks Smurf - gee some serious alteration of the landscape there.
Are you saying that nuclear without hydro backup/storage is unviable?

I mean I'm resigned to the fact that the grandkids will have nuclear. Are they also definitely gonna have these dams you mention?

Nuclear is certainly viable without hydro. But running a 100% nuclear grid would be incredibly inefficient at best.

The problem relates to demand variation. If you have 13,000 MW at the daily peak and 7500 MW at the daily minimum (rough figures for NSW) then you'll have a lot of trouble doing that all with nuclear.

Nuclear plants run nicely at constant load. Having 13,000 MW running like that would be inefficient technically and financially - lots of wasted heat and a fortune spent building rarely used peaking plant.

Much cheaper and more efficient to run the nuclear plants at a nice steady load and let hydro (or fossil fuel) take care of the peaks. That's why even France isn't going for 100% nuclear.

Same reason why, contrary to popular belief, Victoria never had 100% from brown coal - technically it's doable but too inefficient and expensive. Hence the hydro plants built shortly after the first brown coal plant. And the ongoing use of first black coal and oil and these days gas to handle the peaks.

I could also point out that if all this becomes obsolete in 100 years time then the hydro schemes are the most easily restorable (even Bob Brown of all people acknowledges this). You won't get the coal back in the ground. You won't get the CO2 out of the air. And you won't make the nuclear waste disappear. But drain a dam, plant some trees and nature will do a pretty good job in a single human lifespan.

In my opinion the reason hydro (and forests) attract so much attention is because the damage can be seen. You can easily see what has been lost and what the impact is. In contrast, the impact of fossil fuels and nuclear is hidden from most even though it's far harder to reverse. Out of sight, out of mind. Hence lots of fuss about dams and trees that could be put back in a century or two at most but we suck the oil wells dry forever with hardly a word being said about it.

We deny a generation or two access to an unspoilt area of land and the result is massive protest.

We deny EVERY coming generation access to a critical natural resource, oil, and not a word is said. Even threatening a permanent climate disaster attracts less outrage than borrowing an area of land for a century or two. Hmm...

 

[Buddy]

Hey Smurf, a slighly different angle to the use of nuclear power............
What about fusion? Yes, the technology hasn't caught up with the science yet but I expect it to happen within the next xxx years or so. Theoretically fusion reactors should be capable of significant turndown so they should be capable of handling both base load and peak. That would eliminate the need for peak load storage dams. Do you have any thoughts on that?

And then there's dark matter energy...................endless energy forever! And whilst I'm on far out there stuff, how about turning the entire planet into an electric generator and harness the energy from the electro magnetic interaction between the Earth and the Sun. That should do the trick!

 

[Pat]

Hey i'm pretty fresh to this thread.

Has anyone seen the "new age" solar cells? Making inks and plastics that act like solar cells. They don't need direct light to make power and they're apparently 10 times more efficient than what we use now. The technology can be mass produced, and in the testing stage its cheaper than a conventional solar cell. So it can only get cheaper can't it?

 

[2020hindsight]

Hey i'm pretty fresh to this thread.

Has anyone seen the "new age" solar cells? Making inks and plastics that act like solar cells. They don't need direct light to make power and they're apparently 10 times more efficient than what we use now. The technology can be mass produced, and in the testing stage its cheaper than a conventional solar cell. So it can only get cheaper can't it?

here's another great joke ...
lost opportunities - thanks Johnny
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2301635.htm

Pat - yep - That was what I was referring to back on the other thread.
Lost opportunities - We were actually "onto it" - but without some encouragement from the Govt, it slipped through our fingers ..

PS If I'm not mistaken, prior to this someone said we required an area of 50km x 50km of solar cells to power Australia - ok - a heap of ifs and buts ... (2500 km^2)

But with 10 times the efficiency, presumably we now only need 16 km x 16km. (250 km^2)
(Gotta feeling smurf won't agree lol) .

Calls for urgent solar industry funding PRINT FRIENDLY
EMAIL STORY

PM - Friday, 11 July , 2008 18:25:00
Reporter: Bronwyn Herbert
MARK COLVIN: Sustainable energy experts say that Australia is at risk of being globally uncompetitive in solar energy unless funding for the industry is made available immediately.

A United States based solar energy company has just made a significant breakthrough in producing cheap solar cells that could be commercially ready in three years.

The technology is similar to one developed at the University of Queensland, but the Australian version is still a decade away from commercialisation.

Bronwyn Herbert reports.

BRONWYN HERBERT: It sounds too good to be true: cheap solar panels that are more reliable and capable of generating up to ten times more electricity.

PHILIP JENNINGS: The beauty of this one is it's just a flat plate of glass containing a dye which absorbs the light then re-emits it. And the advantage of that is that flat sheets of glass containing dye are quire inexpensive.

BRONWYN HERBERT: The new technology concentrates the sun's rays - by using a mixture of dyes that can be painted onto window panes.

Philip Jennings is a professor of energy studies at Murdoch University and says the breakthrough from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is technically and economically significant for the solar sector.

PHILIP JENNINGS: Well, it's potentially a very important breakthrough in the design of solar cells which could bring the price down quite significantly and could make the idea of concentrating sunlight onto solar cells much more feasible.

BRONWYN HERBERT: This means the solar panels could be used to replace windows.

BRONWYN HERBERT: Scientists at the University of Queensland have also been toying with mixtures of dyes to concentrate solar rays. But they say it's still a decade away from commercialisation.

The American breakthrough has sparked debate over the state of Australia's own solar industry.

PHILIP JENNINGS: To see a breakthrough in design like this, so simple and so obvious once you've seen it, shows that there's enormous opportunities here for research and development to develop products that are going to be cost-effective and will give us a clean energy future if the Government's prepared to invest in them.

 

[Pat]

Lost opportunities - We were actually "onto it" - but without some encouragement from the Govt, it slipped through our fingers ..

Just like the electric car eh?
I'd say it's more than govt support. It's big business that holds this enviro stuff back.

Imagine a car that needs no petrol and can be fueled at home via an extention cord. I don't think the oil companies would let that happen. And they didn't. The technology is here, it has here in the late 80's.

As said before, money is the key driver here, not the environment. So f@#king sad.

 

[dj_420]

Hey guys

I have not posted on this thread yet, but would like to add some points to stir the pot a little.

All this attention has been brought about by apparent global warming. But if we begin to look at these issues on a geological time scale then it appears quite different. In the past the earth used to be a lot hotter, and it is only in recent times (in a geological sense) that the earth has begun to cool down.

We are technically still in an ice age, this is because there is still substantial ice on the poles. Currently we are in an interglacial period which by definition is a warmer period within an ice age.

If you look at the nuts and bolts of it, it is identified that glacial periods (colder periods of an ice age) are characterized by colder drier climates, and interglacial are characterized by warmer wetter climates. Could it not be simple fluctuations in the earth’s climate that is continuing today as it has for the past 4.5 billion years? We would probably see just as much media hype if the earth was coming out of an interglacial and heading for a glacial period, whereby sea levels fall and the continents dry up as more and more freshwater is locked away in ice sheets.

The media loves to sensationalize things and although sea levels have been predicted to rise by up to 10 meters, if we look a little further back in history at the Cretaceous period (144 – 65 million years ago) sea levels were 170 meters higher than today.

My point is that the time on earth that humans have been around (300 thousand years) is merely a blip on the geologic time scale. During the time of humans we have seen three glacial periods and two interglacial, of which the temperature was warmer than it is today. I think that even if humans do have some impact on the earths climate it has run its course in cycles for many millions of years before this and to try and sustain ourselves in a temperature range or sea level of what we “perceive” to be habitable is crazy. That is like trying to stop earthquakes and volcanoes from happening.

Thought I might add this for a balanced wholistic approach. Just a little food for thought.

 

[Pat]

Agree DJ,
However humans have altered this world in so little time. Just like evolution, mother nature being in control may just be a thing of the past.

 

[dj_420]

Agree DJ,
However humans have altered this world in so little time. Just like evolution, mother nature being in control may just be a thing of the past.

It depends on what scale you look at things, but we have had an affect on planet earth regarding use of fossil fuels, land clearing etc.

One other point I will make is that a warmer wetter climate will lead to higher species diversity, one only has to compare the Amazon to Antarctica to make the comparison.

Effects of this could mean increased land for agriculture, increase in freshwater, increased crop yields, and an overall increase in plant life and plant diversity could lead to an increase in carbon sinks meaning plants are able to take up higher amounts of carbon dioxide.

There are many unknowns, but I the point I am making is that the earth has many cycles, to what extent humans have a permanent effect on these cycles is yet to be seen.