Environmentalism May Face Major Setback in 2009 85 comments
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By Darryl Siry
In the last two years or so, I have witnessed what I believed to be a sea change in society’s views about the environment, and particularly the acceptance of global warming by the mainstream as a critical challenge of our era.
When faced with the questions of whether this surge of popularity of “green” issues was just a fad, I confidently answered that no, this time things were different. Progressive thinking about environmental issues had penetrated the mainstream. Even President Bush acknowledged the issue in his 2007 State of the Union. A new generation of children would grow up with sustainability as the norm just as my generation grew up with computers as the norm.
But today, I fear that we may see a major setback in 2009. The combination of recession and populist notions will gain momentum, stoked by fear and hardship. These forces may be strong enough to stop the progress of environmentalism dead in its tracks.
The essential problem is the tragedy of the commons. Global warming and concern about CO2 emissions is a global, social problem that has extraordinary long term impacts, but when you look at it on an individual level, the marginal returns that a selfish individual can gain by ignoring the greater good far exceeds the marginal cost to that individual in the short run. In the long run, though, everyone pays more.
For those not familiar with this concept of Economics, an example that everyone has experienced is the group dinner where everyone agrees to split the bill. Relieved of their individual accountability to pay for only what they use, each person orders more than what they would normally order, knowing that the additional costs will be borne by the group. The individual also reasons that if they alone behave responsibly, they will not be rewarded with a lower bill but rather will still have to bear the higher cost of the average bill.
The predictable result is that the average bill is much higher than if each paid their own way. A nasty side effect is paranoia and suspicion, as people watch what each other is ordering and get angry at the irresponsibility of each other.
With recession upon us and fear of long-term depression, powerful populist notions will challenge the “greater good” notions of environmentalism. Put simply, if people are out of a job and can’t afford to pay their heating bill, they could give a rat’s ass about global warming and will be infuriated by billions in government spending for environmental causes including electric car subsidies and investments in solar power or biofuels.
The media loves to play the populist line, as it is a sure winner for readership. Politicians are highly susceptible to populist trends, and will be quick to change directions. You will hear a lot of politicians saying “I support these environmental causes and issues in the long run, but the people can’t afford them today.”
What first triggered this thought for me was the not-so-friendly response that I received to my blog on the need for a gasoline tax. One commenter even went so far as to call for my hanging! Then this morning I read in the NY Times that cheap coal is making a resurgence for home heating.
Watch this play out in 2009. The media will stoke the fires of populism and environmentalism will come under fierce attack. In the absence of private capital to fund major investments in advanced technologies to reduce CO2 emissions, the government will come under intense political pressure if it tries to step into the breach. Great courage will be needed to stay the course of tackling long-term global challenges while also addressing the short-term economic hardships.
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This article has 85 comments:
Green technology should pay it's own way, or in the very least not add overhead. It can be done, but not by simply throwing money at the problem.
Lastly, raising taxes would be another show of cowardice by our government. The same federal government that looked the other way when the finanical instituitions we are now bailing out were digging a gigantic hole. And don't say there was no way to know, anyone with 1/2 a brain could see that no-doc mortgages were and are a horrendous error in judgement, and that real estate going up far faster than incomes would be a bubble.
The hysteriati would be screetching in delight, algore would be on every news show weekly.
Ah, well, back to Britney's latest parental screw-up.
On Jan 02 02:07 PM Steve in Greensboro wrote:
> Finally, some good news!
People will have less money to waste energy and materials.
As a society we may consume less out of hardship, not enlightenment.
However, rapid economic contraction may prove harmful to the environment as people become desperate.
Market forces can have a positive effect on consumption, production and waste.
Downsizing lifestyle can be a sustainable strategy.
Lets look at the data, look at the chart in this article:
travismonitor.blogspot...
Since 2005, most of the warming since 1980 has been erased. Now, I ask you - did Al Gore predict this in his mock-umentary? Nope. He lies and calls it a crisis.The fearmongerers predicted 1C of warming by now - ooops, of by about .. 1C.
We are talking a minuscule 0.2C rise in 5 decades, making it clear that claims of huge impacts due to CO2 are either (a) false or (b) masked by massive natural cooling (unlikely, but if true suggests that we should crank up the coal plants to ward off the coming ice age).
We are lucky indeed that natural variability has kicked in on the cool side recently, if only to give honest people a warning that the Global Warming fearmongerers are hoaxers. Had the 'crisis' been global cooling, all the news of recent cooling would have been blamed on man. Instead .... the reality of cooling is ignored in the news and the farce of a 'warming planet' continues, even as cool weather harms crop yields.
We have bogus and noxious 'cures' for a problem that doesnt really exist. Cap-n-trade will harm the economy and be of no help to the environment; limited and taxing CO2 will only shift industry to places like china where the environmental impact will be WORSE (no pollution controls at all);
The stupidity of believing in hoaxes like "global warming is a crisis" is indeed a luxury at best and a hysterical poison at worst.
Good news indeed if we finally realize that CO2 should NOT be limited as it does us no harm.
No, the essential problem is that people have been lied to via fearmongering to think that CO2 is really really bad, when it really really isnt. They are lied to being told we must take action on CO2 now, when all facts indicate that is not so at all. CO2 is the basis of all life on earth, the increases in CO2 have had very little impact on temperature, and that impact is benign. Sea level rise is miniscule (measured in millimeters), and polar bears are not endangered. Those Weapons of Climate Destruction are not there.
That's the tragedy of PR-based pseudo-scientific environmental-hoaxism. They posit scenarios that are actually fiction. I agree with the above comment - go to Watt's Up with That blog - Anthony Watt's blog at wattsupwiththat.com - and get educated on the real temperature trends (not the bogus IPCC Models). The truth will set us free - from very bad environmental policies.
What you have to understand is that cap-and-trade and other anti-energy policies will HARM our ability to get to energy independence. Why? We are the 'saudi arabia' of coal, and cap-and-trade is all about killing coal, not stopping oil imports. Cap-and-trade is about bringing the USA down a peg economically.
The solution for energy independence is simple:
1. Oil import tariff of maybe $30/barrel to get a floor on prices for alternatives
2. Open up US drilling, offshore, ANWR, etc. pursue oil shale in Colorado. Pursue NG hydrates in Alaska and the huge NG reserves offshore Cali.
3. Build more nuclear power plants and say yes to all forms of domestic energy. Wind, etc. OTOH Solar and hydrogen are pipedreams, and ethanol is a waste of money. Dont fund the non-economic forms of energy and dont force 'renewable' mandates that cost a lot and do no good. If the goal is energy independence have an 'all of the above' approach that supports on a level basis all alternatives.
4. plug-in hybrids that run on CNG/biofuels and the electricity based on domestic nuclear energy.
5. Add to gas tax (reduces conumption better than CAFE stds) and make it economically helpful via using the money to reduce payroll taxes, but dont tax alt fuels.
6. Build a better battery to support #4.
Result would be more domestic energy and reduction in clout of our OPEC 'friends'.
Ethanol is another scam, designed to reward politician's friends.
The extreme swings in fuel prices is disruptive to both our economy and any reduction in imported oil. If we had true leadership (instead of payola) in Washington, they would set long term goals for fuel prices (say $2.50/gallon, with a 5%/yr inflation factor). When prices get lower, taxes would be added to reach the goal. When prices get higher, taxes would be refunded to bring it down. THAT would provide a stable development platform to make U.S. independence viable. People and corporations could plan intelligently.
John Stossell did a "Give me a Break" piece on it.
coal - fireplace stoves are available designed to burn coal & hardwood interchangeably. put the ashes on your driveway in winter. however, not everyone wants to have a coal bunker in the basement. i did in 1943.
> jack
> jack
Then the global climate changers want to state that carbon dioxide is pollutant! Thisis plant food! Any botanist will tell you plants eat CO2 and expell oxygen, which we need! An increase in CO2 = an increase in plants.
Then the global fartists want to tell us that cows and other cattle are increasing and threfore expelling more gas.... well that may be true, but guess what! Methane is readily eaten by microorganisms as well as expelled by other microorgranisms.... again a balance.
Nature ALWAYS balances itself.
Taxes will never solve the problem. Government is never a solution. If a problem becomes big enough - assuming it is a problem in the first place (which climate change is not) then when it becomes profitable, people under a capitalist system will work to solve that problem through invention and innovation.
Working about the environment is only a rich capitalist concern, because we have the wealth and morals to do so. Communist and other third world countries rarely address the problem because either they cannot do so financially, or they do not want to or they place lip service - as in China - which is a combination of all three.
Stop this nonsense and let markets fix whatever problem there is. And in this case- there is none.
Then the global climate changers want to state that carbon dioxide is pollutant! Thisis plant food! Any botanist will tell you plants eat CO2 and expell oxygen, which we need! An increase in CO2 = an increase in plants.
Then the global fartists want to tell us that cows and other cattle are increasing and threfore expelling more gas.... well that may be true, but guess what! Methane is readily eaten by microorganisms as well as expelled by other microorgranisms.... again a balance.
Nature ALWAYS balances itself.
Taxes will never solve the problem. Government is never a solution. If a problem becomes big enough - assuming it is a problem in the first place (which climate change is not) then when it becomes profitable, people under a capitalist system will work to solve that problem through invention and innovation.
Working about the environment is only a rich capitalist concern, because we have the wealth and morals to do so. Communist and other third world countries rarely address the problem because either they cannot do so financially, or they do not want to or they place lip service - as in China - which is a combination of all three.
Stop this nonsense and let markets fix whatever problem there is. And in this case- there is none.
Clean Coal / Hydrocarbon Technology IS HERE! The Technology has been Independently confirmed! The Research for the first processes is comppleted. The Patents are soon to be granted. 2009 will be forever known as the year of the Carbon Revolution. This process will forever change the way the world thinks of FOSSIL FUELS! The first is obvious Clean energy from COAL. Second and the biggest change is CARBON Construction Materials! BILLIONS of tones of carbon fiber materials made from Waste CARBON made from the waste that is being dumped to the Enviroment everyday. Third Hydrogen FUEL as a byproduct of COAL, NATURAL GAS, CRUDE and all sources of HYDROCARBONS In cluding BIO GROWN! ALL THIS plus much, much MORE while ELECTRICY can be GENERATED FOR LESS TODAYS COST AND RESTORE THE WORLDS ECONOMIES WHILE BRING THOSE DOLLARS IN FORIEGN HANDS HOME!
BELIEVE THIS!!!: www.faqs.org/patents/a...
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
1. Oil import tariff of maybe $30/barrel to get a floor on prices for alternatives."
This is not a new idea, and pops up every time there is a dramatic fall in the price of crude oil. See, for instance, this article from the New York Times of 18 November 1986:
query.nytimes.com/gst/...
There is the little problem of the tariffs petroleum products that the United States has committed itself to not exceeding (i.e., "bound") at the World Trade Organization. The U.S. tariff on crude oil is currently $0.105 per barrel (or 0.25 cents per gallon) and has NOT been bound.
However, the tariffs on refined fuels HAVE BEEN bound. That for "Light oil motor fuel from petroleum oils and bituminous minerals (o/than crude) or preps." (HTS 27101115), for example, is $0.525 per barrel (or 1.25 cents per gallon).
dataweb.usitc.gov/scri...
When a country has bound its tariff at the WTO, it commits to not raising the tariff without compensating WTO-Member exporters who are adversely affected, which would include Canada, Mexico and Norway. That would be a very, very expensive step.
That means that, in theory, the USA could raise its import tariff on crude to whatever level it wants to. But if it were to raise the tariff above $0.525 per barrel -- the tariff applied to petroleum products -- all that would do is encourage imports of refined products instead of crude, thus further undermining U.S. refiners. It would also, of course, create windfall profits for domestic producers of crude petroleum.
By contrast, the government would be perfectly within its WTO rights and obligations to apply a carbon tax, or raise the excise taxes, on all motor fuels. But, of course, that would not make the domestic oil industry (or motorists) very happy. So, instead, policy makers try to dupe the public into thinking that they have a cheap, home-grown solution right around the corner: biofuels. Now that gasoline costs half the price of ethanol (even before adjusting for ethanol's lower BTU content) it will be interesting to see how long before the voting public starts seriously questioning the current mandates and subsidies.
"The Amareleja Power Plant project involves photovoltaic (PV) technology that uses semiconductors to convert the sun’s rays into electric power.
Within a year, the plant will have an installed capacity of 46 megawatts (MW). It is expected to be operating at full capacity by the year 2010, when it will produce 64 MW using 2,520 solar trackers supporting 262 modules with 268,000 PV panels producing 93 gigawatts/hour per year, generating sufficient electricity to power 30,000 homes. "
ipsnews.net/news.asp?i...
Keep in mind that l kilowatt hour = 3412.14163 BTU. So what is the HEAT RATE required to generate the above amount of electric power?
"Gigawatts/hour per year" might be questioned before starting any computations?
"Global warming is a hoax:" then maybe there is a rational (not a right wing hysterical explanation) reason for what I've observed with glaciers receding in the past 20 years. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Kenya, the Alps, Caucasus Mtns. of Russia, southern Andes, Rockies: I've seen them all over a period of time and SOMETHING is going on.
Freedoms Truth needs to do a bit more homework. As for pursuing oil shale, there is no economically viable means to extract same in a manner that doesn't trash a big part of the West (also known as the US's economic colony). Shell Oil is the pioneer in developing oil shale and has stated they won't know for several years if their in-situ heating and freeze-wall technology even works. The main noise for oil shale comes from wildcatters with big dollars in their eyes and their puppet politicians, like the Utah governor and two senators, who ignore economic & scientific realities.
"Solar is a pipedream".....funny, it seems to be working well here in the West and the technology is getting better year by year; same for wind power. Yes, both are subsidized to a degree--but we're not subsidizing oil consumption with all our massive spending on roads??
Tek wrote: "we must be more frugal, efficient and conservative with what we have, regardless." Very good thinking; there is enormous down-the-road savings to be had simply by retrofitting buildings so they are more efficient energy users.
One thing Freedoms Truth wrote is a good idea: an oil tariff so there is a floor under oil prices. That makes sense.
No matter what, the era of cheap energy is over. The sooner we move to alternatives of all kinds, and lessen our dependence on petro-dictators, the better off we will be.
You think raising the tariff on crude oil (currently at around 1/4 cent per gallon). By how much? Beyond the 10.5 cents per gallon applied to oil products? Since that would lead to a surge in imports of refined products, how (and who) would that help? Or are you urging the United States raising its import tariffs on refined products as well, and making hefty compensatory payments to its current suppliers, as is the right of other WTO Members to demand? (See my previous comment, above.)
On Jan 02 05:31 PM hoover wrote:
> While I am not so concerned with the environment, I am concerned
> about the super dependence on oil. Oil producer monopolists and cartels
> of the world need some real competition for a change. Alternate energy
> (solar, hydrogen, ethanol, bio-diesel, battery, wind, nuclear, etc.)
> can offer major competition if the public a doesn't fall for the
> same energy industry trick again. For example, if the price of oil
> falls to $30 or $20 a barrel, the public and its government are supposed
> be dumb enough to end all alternate fuels effort as they have done
> before when oil drops in price. GM reliably would dump the Volt electric
> car and develop a super 10 ton Hummer getting three miles per gallon.
> But, if oil is $20 a barrel, it COULD be $4 a barrel and 10 cents
> a gallon gasoline if oil had any serious competition. At $4 a barrel,
> the Middle East would wield no power. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela would
> have no more clout in South America. Energy costs could drop like
> a rock. The USA could lead the world technologically in the next
> decade rather than remaining sterile. My point is that regardless
> of global warming (problem or not) there are many other urgent reasons
> to pursue oil independence.
This country now has a high dis-proportion of them. It's due to our children being educated/indoctrinated by blue-collar NEA union teachers and their collectivist agenda. Far too many people today have no reasoning ability to be able know science from voodoo let alone discriminate nuances in global climatology.
Whenever I run into one of these enviro-Nazi punks, I test them. I ask them" "Do you now what the terms Albedo, Maunder minimum, and Younger Dryas mean?" I have never found one that knew the answers. Therefore, They know nothing about the subject. I do not discuss climate with these ignorant clowns!
The beauty of being older is I can remember a time in the 70's when the "experts" were all saying we were going into a global freeze.
The enviro-Nazis and their running-dog lackeys in media and education are trying, and doing a hell of a good job to politicize climate. It was a big scam back then and it is a big scam now. Wise up!
- Don't get me started!!!
More solar power baloney!! Solar power generation peaks near mid day (assuming no clouds). Demand in most areas peaks at the end of the day. If you don't have an enormous battery or other means of energy storage, generating 64 MW when the sun shines does nothing to supply power when it's needed. Sure it may offset a small amount of fossil-fueled energy production, but the fossil-fueled plants are still needed when the sun is not shining. Unless of course everyone is content to go to bed at sunset
On Jan 03 10:30 AM billp37 wrote:
> More suspricious stuff.
>
> "The Amareleja Power Plant project involves photovoltaic (PV) technology
> that uses semiconductors to convert the sun’s rays into electric
> power.
>
> Within a year, the plant will have an installed capacity of 46 megawatts
> (MW). It is expected to be operating at full capacity by the year
> 2010, when it will produce 64 MW using 2,520 solar trackers supporting
> 262 modules with 268,000 PV panels producing 93 gigawatts/hour per
> year, generating sufficient electricity to power 30,000 homes. "
>
>
> ipsnews.net/news.asp?i...
>
> Keep in mind that l kilowatt hour = 3412.14163 BTU. So what is the
> HEAT RATE required to generate the above amount of electric power?
>
>
> "Gigawatts/hour per year" might be questioned before starting any
> computations?
The current system on the federal and state level has a chronic problem of picking and building good projects. I don't like toll roads but have to admit that at least a toll road starts out respecting the relationship between what an asset costs and how much the asset will bring in over its service life. Too many roads are being built that can not possibly pay back the cost. Sometimes the motive for this is economic development but the user pays system requires traffic on a road to get the money back. Lusting over the sales or property tax income from a shopping center or truck stop has caused many a sub prime transportation investment. The Appalachian Highway System is a perfect example of waste of pavement. The economic development that was suppose to happen by just having a four lane road laying around never happened and if it did happen it never generated the traffic required to sustain the maintenance.
Likewise, the theory that people will be better off on public transportation is irrational. About 2.86 cents out of the federal tax goes to public transportation. That works out to about 15.5 %, but the number of passenger miles consumed by public transportation is less than 2%. Passenger cars are not able to beat transit busses in the consumption of BTU's per Passenger Mile.
There is no way I would agree to a gas tax without performance standards being applied and helping us move to more a productive transportation systems.
While I would agree the Tesla is a marvel in engineering, the price of electrifying our transport (not to mention the NET benefits thereof) is prohibitive.
www.petitionproject.or...
The earth has been coooling since 1998 and the rate of glacial melting is about the same as it was in the mid 1800s, and carbon dioxide is a nice fertilizer as it is absorbed in the oceans of the world helping life there.
And SO2 is actually a reflectant (reducing warming) but we still require costly scrubbers on coal plants - a good idea - but only seriously needed where there is a concentration of plants. Reducing NO2 is a good thing and not too costly. Reducing CO2 has not been proven as necessary or even a good thing by any realistic measurements of real data - the sun has been mostly responsible for global warming since the beginning of time. And to put an unnecessary carbon tax increasing the cost of many items such as electric power to the consumer will hurt the lettle guy the most.
OK, we agree that cap and trade is a scam. The question asked was the context of 'how to get to energy independence' and my default answer is "all of the above" except for boutique ideas that are non-economical.
1. offshore drilling - was 84 billion barrels of offshore oil and NG, its the low-hanging fruit. with 20 million barrels/day of use, opening up offshore could double our production of 5 million barrels/day for 50 years.
2. wind - its at 9cents/kwh - wind lives on renwable mandates and subsidies but is close enough to economical that it beats all the other alternative energy approaches. It has negatives, like variable strain on transmission, but that's a small impact if its only a small part of the grid.
3. "smart people are willing to try solar thermal" - Let them try, yet wind has taken off, capacity doubled since 2006, and solar thermal hasnt. It should tell you something. what it tells you is wind can operate day and night, year round, in the right locations, at 35% of rated capacity. solar cant touch that except in a few spots. But I'm open-minded, if it happens, it happens. What I think is absurdly stupid are these bids by leftie city councils to put $100 million investments into solar panels and get $1 million worth of energy out of them (check out what San Fran did). It gets even stupider when you have greenies in places like Wisconsin or Oregon.
4. Oil shale - we have more MORE OIL in the form of shale than the mideast has of oil. 1 trillion barrels! Shell Oil demonstrated an in situ process for extracting the oil that in 2005 was practical at $30/barrel.
If we indeed had a floor on oil import costs, say around $60/barrel, this could be economical long-term. It would be our equivalent of the alberta oil sands, which are today providing 3 million barrels/day or so.
5. Yes, you can and should pull the plug on hydrogen. It's just a form of energy storage, not an energy source, and for tranportation, its inferior to the liquid forms of fuel from biofuels, gasoline, etc. it's an impractical pipedream - just consider the task of trying to get 20 gals of equivalent energy in a hydrogen tank. super high pressure - and for what? The hydrogen is generated from eitehr nat gas, so why bother with that expensive process, and instead just make if CNG? CNG cars work just as well as hydrogen cars, and if you are looking for the fuel cell solution - well, we can have plug-in hybrids that run on bio-fuels and use zero gas, and are lower cost and JUST AS ENERGY EFFICIENT as fuel-cell based cars. Do the math. The math on hydrogen just doesnt work.
6. I dont get the point on ethanol. My point on ethanol is that we spend something like $20 billion a year for what is really of no value added. its not envrionmentally sound, economically helpful (drivs up food costs), or good for taxpayers ( we are looted). Its a dumb giveaway. End the giveaway and I'd be happy to see ethanol live on its own merits. oh, and lets allow imports of ethanol from brazil without high tariffs.
To sum up, get more domestic oil and nat gas (increase production from 5 to 8 million barrels a day), displace use of oil in transportation (cut from 13 million barrels a day for cars and planes to 6 million barrels a day), reduce oil use in heating (electricity from nuke plants instead), and we could reduce oil imports from 15 million barrels a day to 5 million barrels a day.
The earth has had natural climate changes for its entire history. I look outside and it is 20 degrees warmer now during the day than it was 8 hours ago (at night). Man made? So why do you assume a change in a glacier isnt also driven by natural climate variation?
Temperatures in 2008 were lower than in 8 of the previous 11 years, and were no higher than in 1980. Sea ice extents increased dramatically in the last 12 months.
The truth about temperature trends will set you free:
www.nationalpost.com/8...
FU back. You lambaste shale oil, because its not proven yet according to you, yet you boost these other choices like solar that (a) cant live on their own without massive govt subsidies and (b) make up a tiny percent of our energy grid as of now. No, what works out west is Cali not building enough plants to feed its own electri needs and importing energy that comes from northwest hydro and coal plants using wyoming coal. Greenies are the ultimate hypocrites!
And You are suffering from double-standard of the ("two legs bad four legs good") variety. Oil shale is more economical than solar, and no it doesnt harm the environment that much, not compared to its benefit long-term.
"Yes, both are subsidized to a degree--but we're not subsidizing oil consumption with all our massive spending on roads??" - no we are not, directly, since you can ride your bicycle, EV, or bio-fuel RV on those same roads, *AND* since the Federal and state gas tax is what PAYS for those roads to begin with.
You are absolutely correct on all counts. But if you look at the politics of it, we'll most likely continue the course we're now on, which is no course at all.
However, take heart. Proven U.S. reserves of NG and the development of methane hydrates will eventually cause real science and economics to win out in the end.
It's difficult, but we have no choice other than to remain patient. After all, for how many centuries did man believe the sun orbited the earth? Hopefully, it won't take that long.
This represents the views of 31000+ US scientists. 9000+ with a PhD.
Ditto that.
1. The BIGGEST problem in the world is the high and growing world population. Nature will eventually solve this with mass extinctions because we and our politicians do not even acknowledge the problem, much less attempt to solve it.
2. The SECOND biggest problem in the world is GLOBAL WARMING - not the one caused by humanity - though we probably contribute some. The global warming has been going on for 15,000 years, has raised the level of the world oceans by 400 to 500 feet, and has perhaps another 100 feet of sea level rise to go.
3. The THIRD biggest problem is the END of Global Warming - which means we are entering a new ICE AGE - that could be in a few years or in a thousand years. If nature hasn't taken care of problem #1 by this time, problem #3 will likely take care of the population problem.
4. The FOURTH biggest problem is ASTEROIDS - not the dinosaur killers - but the ones like Tanguska, and the one that created the meteor crater in the US Southwest. These are city-killers and occur MUCH more often that we had thought.
5. The FIFTH biggest problem is VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. Expect major ones every 20 years or so, like Pinatubo and Krakatoa.
Nah - forget that stuff - lets talk about coal mines, taxes and bovine-derived methane instead.
How many potholes have to be patched annually?
I certainly don't know, millions maybe? None of the alt. energy solutions will provide relief from potholes.
Asphalt is used and is an oil based product, you will not be able to asphalt your driveway if we become truly oil independent. IMO
On Jan 03 09:06 AM Tek wrote:
> With the impacts of burgeoning population, reduced resources, finite
> real estate, and ever changing and declining environmental quality,
> it is obvious to the world, if not a few brain dead trolls, that
> we must be more frugal, efficient, and conservative with what we
> have, regardless . Even dogs don't crap in their own beds. We should
> be at least that smart.
We need to direct our attention to wasted heat produced by engines and power plants and since we are the saudi arabia of coal, clean coal technology.
On Jan 03 11:18 AM SteveB/Colorado wrote:
> Reading some of the comments on this thread is amusing. "Let the
> markets fix the problem:" not to rain on a nice parade, but unregulated
> markets got us into the current economic mess and gave capitalism
> a bad name in the process.
>
> "Global warming is a hoax:" then maybe there is a rational (not a
> right wing hysterical explanation) reason for what I've observed
> with glaciers receding in the past 20 years. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Kenya,
> the Alps, Caucasus Mtns. of Russia, southern Andes, Rockies: I've
> seen them all over a period of time and SOMETHING is going on.<br/>
>
> Freedoms Truth needs to do a bit more homework. As for pursuing oil
> shale, there is no economically viable means to extract same in a
> manner that doesn't trash a big part of the West (also known as the
> US's economic colony). Shell Oil is the pioneer in developing oil
> shale and has stated they won't know for several years if their in-situ
> heating and freeze-wall technology even works. The main noise for
> oil shale comes from wildcatters with big dollars in their eyes and
> their puppet politicians, like the Utah governor and two senators,
> who ignore economic & scientific realities.
>
> "Solar is a pipedream".....fu... it seems to be working well here
> in the West and the technology is getting better year by year; same
> for wind power. Yes, both are subsidized to a degree--but we're not
> subsidizing oil consumption with all our massive spending on roads??
>
>
> Tek wrote: "we must be more frugal, efficient and conservative with
> what we have, regardless." Very good thinking; there is enormous
> down-the-road savings to be had simply by retrofitting buildings
> so they are more efficient energy users.
>
> One thing Freedoms Truth wrote is a good idea: an oil tariff so there
> is a floor under oil prices. That makes sense.
>
> No matter what, the era of cheap energy is over. The sooner we move
> to alternatives of all kinds, and lessen our dependence on petro-dictators,
> the better off we will be.
We need to direct our attention to wasted heat produced by engines and power plants and since we are the saudi arabia of coal, clean coal technology.
On Jan 03 11:18 AM SteveB/Colorado wrote:
> Reading some of the comments on this thread is amusing. "Let the
> markets fix the problem:" not to rain on a nice parade, but unregulated
> markets got us into the current economic mess and gave capitalism
> a bad name in the process.
>
> "Global warming is a hoax:" then maybe there is a rational (not a
> right wing hysterical explanation) reason for what I've observed
> with glaciers receding in the past 20 years. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Kenya,
> the Alps, Caucasus Mtns. of Russia, southern Andes, Rockies: I've
> seen them all over a period of time and SOMETHING is going on.<br/>
>
> Freedoms Truth needs to do a bit more homework. As for pursuing oil
> shale, there is no economically viable means to extract same in a
> manner that doesn't trash a big part of the West (also known as the
> US's economic colony). Shell Oil is the pioneer in developing oil
> shale and has stated they won't know for several years if their in-situ
> heating and freeze-wall technology even works. The main noise for
> oil shale comes from wildcatters with big dollars in their eyes and
> their puppet politicians, like the Utah governor and two senators,
> who ignore economic & scientific realities.
>
> "Solar is a pipedream".....fu... it seems to be working well here
> in the West and the technology is getting better year by year; same
> for wind power. Yes, both are subsidized to a degree--but we're not
> subsidizing oil consumption with all our massive spending on roads??
>
>
> Tek wrote: "we must be more frugal, efficient and conservative with
> what we have, regardless." Very good thinking; there is enormous
> down-the-road savings to be had simply by retrofitting buildings
> so they are more efficient energy users.
>
> One thing Freedoms Truth wrote is a good idea: an oil tariff so there
> is a floor under oil prices. That makes sense.
>
> No matter what, the era of cheap energy is over. The sooner we move
> to alternatives of all kinds, and lessen our dependence on petro-dictators,
> the better off we will be.
We need to direct our attention to wasted heat produced by engines and power plants and since we are the saudi arabia of coal, clean coal technology.
On Jan 03 11:18 AM SteveB/Colorado wrote:
> Reading some of the comments on this thread is amusing. "Let the
> markets fix the problem:" not to rain on a nice parade, but unregulated
> markets got us into the current economic mess and gave capitalism
> a bad name in the process.
>
> "Global warming is a hoax:" then maybe there is a rational (not a
> right wing hysterical explanation) reason for what I've observed
> with glaciers receding in the past 20 years. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Kenya,
> the Alps, Caucasus Mtns. of Russia, southern Andes, Rockies: I've
> seen them all over a period of time and SOMETHING is going on.<br/>
>
> Freedoms Truth needs to do a bit more homework. As for pursuing oil
> shale, there is no economically viable means to extract same in a
> manner that doesn't trash a big part of the West (also known as the
> US's economic colony). Shell Oil is the pioneer in developing oil
> shale and has stated they won't know for several years if their in-situ
> heating and freeze-wall technology even works. The main noise for
> oil shale comes from wildcatters with big dollars in their eyes and
> their puppet politicians, like the Utah governor and two senators,
> who ignore economic & scientific realities.
>
> "Solar is a pipedream".....fu... it seems to be working well here
> in the West and the technology is getting better year by year; same
> for wind power. Yes, both are subsidized to a degree--but we're not
> subsidizing oil consumption with all our massive spending on roads??
>
>
> Tek wrote: "we must be more frugal, efficient and conservative with
> what we have, regardless." Very good thinking; there is enormous
> down-the-road savings to be had simply by retrofitting buildings
> so they are more efficient energy users.
>
> One thing Freedoms Truth wrote is a good idea: an oil tariff so there
> is a floor under oil prices. That makes sense.
>
> No matter what, the era of cheap energy is over. The sooner we move
> to alternatives of all kinds, and lessen our dependence on petro-dictators,
> the better off we will be.
On Jan 03 01:18 PM Paul Killinger wrote:
> Freedoms,
>
> You are absolutely correct on all counts. But if you look at the
> politics of it, we'll most likely continue the course we're now on,
> which is no course at all.
>
> However, take heart. Proven U.S. reserves of NG and the development
> of methane hydrates will eventually cause real science and economics
> to win out in the end.
>
> It's difficult, but we have no choice other than to remain patient.
> After all, for how many centuries did man believe the sun orbited
> the earth? Hopefully, it won't take that long.
On Jan 03 11:41 AM Danny L. Newton wrote:
> Usually the Tragedy of the Commons analogy is used to show the importance
> of ownership in preserving productivity. I think this is a very good
> alternative explanation. I also agree that we need a gas tax but
> I will not advocate for one as long as the current system wastes
> so much money.
>
> The current system on the federal and state level has a chronic problem
> of picking and building good projects. I don't like toll roads but
> have to admit that at least a toll road starts out respecting the
> relationship between what an asset costs and how much the asset will
> bring in over its service life. Too many roads are being built that
> can not possibly pay back the cost. Sometimes the motive for this
> is economic development but the user pays system requires traffic
> on a road to get the money back. Lusting over the sales or property
> tax income from a shopping center or truck stop has caused many a
> sub prime transportation investment. The Appalachian Highway System
> is a perfect example of waste of pavement. The economic development
> that was suppose to happen by just having a four lane road laying
> around never happened and if it did happen it never generated the
> traffic required to sustain the maintenance.
> Likewise, the theory that people will be better off on public transportation
> is irrational. About 2.86 cents out of the federal tax goes to public
> transportation. That works out to about 15.5 %, but the number of
> passenger miles consumed by public transportation is less than 2%.
> Passenger cars are not able to beat transit busses in the consumption
> of BTU's per Passenger Mile.
> There is no way I would agree to a gas tax without performance standards
> being applied and helping us move to more a productive transportation
> systems.
On Jan 03 11:41 AM Danny L. Newton wrote:
> Usually the Tragedy of the Commons analogy is used to show the importance
> of ownership in preserving productivity. I think this is a very good
> alternative explanation. I also agree that we need a gas tax but
> I will not advocate for one as long as the current system wastes
> so much money.
>
> The current system on the federal and state level has a chronic problem
> of picking and building good projects. I don't like toll roads but
> have to admit that at least a toll road starts out respecting the
> relationship between what an asset costs and how much the asset will
> bring in over its service life. Too many roads are being built that
> can not possibly pay back the cost. Sometimes the motive for this
> is economic development but the user pays system requires traffic
> on a road to get the money back. Lusting over the sales or property
> tax income from a shopping center or truck stop has caused many a
> sub prime transportation investment. The Appalachian Highway System
> is a perfect example of waste of pavement. The economic development
> that was suppose to happen by just having a four lane road laying
> around never happened and if it did happen it never generated the
> traffic required to sustain the maintenance.
> Likewise, the theory that people will be better off on public transportation
> is irrational. About 2.86 cents out of the federal tax goes to public
> transportation. That works out to about 15.5 %, but the number of
> passenger miles consumed by public transportation is less than 2%.
> Passenger cars are not able to beat transit busses in the consumption
> of BTU's per Passenger Mile.
> There is no way I would agree to a gas tax without performance standards
> being applied and helping us move to more a productive transportation
> systems.
On Jan 03 11:41 AM Danny L. Newton wrote:
> Usually the Tragedy of the Commons analogy is used to show the importance
> of ownership in preserving productivity. I think this is a very good
> alternative explanation. I also agree that we need a gas tax but
> I will not advocate for one as long as the current system wastes
> so much money.
>
> The current system on the federal and state level has a chronic problem
> of picking and building good projects. I don't like toll roads but
> have to admit that at least a toll road starts out respecting the
> relationship between what an asset costs and how much the asset will
> bring in over its service life. Too many roads are being built that
> can not possibly pay back the cost. Sometimes the motive for this
> is economic development but the user pays system requires traffic
> on a road to get the money back. Lusting over the sales or property
> tax income from a shopping center or truck stop has caused many a
> sub prime transportation investment. The Appalachian Highway System
> is a perfect example of waste of pavement. The economic development
> that was suppose to happen by just having a four lane road laying
> around never happened and if it did happen it never generated the
> traffic required to sustain the maintenance.
> Likewise, the theory that people will be better off on public transportation
> is irrational. About 2.86 cents out of the federal tax goes to public
> transportation. That works out to about 15.5 %, but the number of
> passenger miles consumed by public transportation is less than 2%.
> Passenger cars are not able to beat transit busses in the consumption
> of BTU's per Passenger Mile.
> There is no way I would agree to a gas tax without performance standards
> being applied and helping us move to more a productive transportation
> systems.
On Jan 03 02:27 PM Jonathan Christopher wrote:
> Just to keep things in perspective:
>
> 1. The BIGGEST problem in the world is the high and growing world
> population. Nature will eventually solve this with mass extinctions
> because we and our politicians do not even acknowledge the problem,
> much less attempt to solve it.
> 2. The SECOND biggest problem in the world is GLOBAL WARMING - not
> the one caused by humanity - though we probably contribute some.
> The global warming has been going on for 15,000 years, has raised
> the level of the world oceans by 400 to 500 feet, and has perhaps
> another 100 feet of sea level rise to go.
> 3. The THIRD biggest problem is the END of Global Warming - which
> means we are entering a new ICE AGE - that could be in a few years
> or in a thousand years. If nature hasn't taken care of problem #1
> by this time, problem #3 will likely take care of the population
> problem.
> 4. The FOURTH biggest problem is ASTEROIDS - not the dinosaur killers
> - but the ones like Tanguska, and the one that created the meteor
> crater in the US Southwest. These are city-killers and occur MUCH
> more often that we had thought.
> 5. The FIFTH biggest problem is VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. Expect major
> ones every 20 years or so, like Pinatubo and Krakatoa.
>
> Nah - forget that stuff - lets talk about coal mines, taxes and bovine-derived
> methane instead.
FOR THE SAKE OF BEING RUDE, I AM REPOSTING MY PROCLAMATION JUST FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!
Clean Coal / Hydrocarbon Technology IS HERE! The Technology has been Independently confirmed! The Research for the first processes is comppleted. The Patents are soon to be granted. 2009 will be forever known as the year of the Carbon Revolution. This process will forever change the way the world thinks of FOSSIL FUELS! The first is obvious Clean energy from COAL. Second and the biggest change is CARBON Construction Materials! BILLIONS of tones of carbon fiber materials made from Waste CARBON made from the waste that is being dumped to the Enviroment everyday. Third Hydrogen FUEL as a byproduct of COAL, NATURAL GAS, CRUDE and all sources of HYDROCARBONS In cluding BIO GROWN! ALL THIS plus much, much MORE while ELECTRICY can be GENERATED FOR LESS TODAYS COST AND RESTORE THE WORLDS ECONOMIES WHILE BRING THOSE DOLLARS IN FORIEGN HANDS HOME!
BELIEVE THIS!!!: faqs.org/patents/a...
HAPPY NEW YEAR
I'm sorry but I'm still accumulating shares and its thinly traded.
What is the rational for continuing a pro-oil stance? Oil is the most highly subsidized product in America. A great portion of our taxes are spent on the military which is obsessed with protecting oil supplies in the Middle East. If oil companies were forced to bear the cost of government welfare, alternative forms of energy would be competitive and industry would be pumping money into research and development to increase market share. It's time for the USA to wake up to 21st century realities. The oil welfare state of the 20th century is bankrupting this country
Well, if you were looking for a WIDE diversity of comments, you sure got them here. Good job!
You know, I'm a firm believer in UFO's, but some of these folks are WAY out there past me.
I am aware of most of the other Clean Tech's. The big difference with this process is that there is very little waste AND Process pays for itself. NEAR ZERO EMISSIONS! Unlike the others there will not be huge piles of waste (toxic or not) left for future generations to deal with. This process that I Proclaim is truly a "Waste to Gold" process. The biggest winners of this process are the Corporations that buy a license and utilize this process. Just the carbon credit savings alone is worth far more than investment cost for modifying the existing plants or building new ones. Now consider the profits to be had from carbon fibers ( the whole range of carbons), hydrogen gas and the other industrial chemicals byproducts. While you are at it consider the much improved thermal efficiencies of on site hydrogen fuel. If combined with the German Clean Tech process of using Oxygen in place of air, then there would be the added benefit of no NO2 emissions and far less thermal loses. Roughly 80% less due to not passing the nitrogen thru the furnace and out the stack.
With cheaper clean electric power to recharge electric vehicles, like Shai Agassi's proven plan archives.eetimes.com/i... , we will greatly reduce our dependance on foriegn oil AND Carbon dioxide from the transportation sector.
Cheap Energy = more jobs.
What is the Dollar amount place on the Enviromental benifits? This solution pays for itself!
The list of Positive reasons to use this process goes on and on.
Thank you for your time and the opportunity to Proclaim.
A couple observations:
Shale oil - Exxon's biggest economic/business mistake was to invest $2 billion in shale oil energy recovery. Ask them about what they think of the technology - remember it is not even close to rocket science and the energy input is roughly equal to energy out. Ultimately this is the measure we need to worry about, not cost.
Subsidies for green vs. carbon-based energy - Artie Fly is the first I've seen to get it close to right. Every since WW II was lost by the axis due to oil availability, oil's strategic import has been obvious to world leaders. The subsidies to the carbon energy economy far outstrip those to green tech - I mean, c'mon - didn't the administration just loan $17.4 bil to the car guys? I didn't notice that the loaned $17 bil to the wind guys... (so many easy examples here, don't get me started). Not to mention the externalities that are absorbed by no one: a defacto subsidy to the carbon energy industry.
Global warming - whatever you may think about the various causes of earth's temps rising, the greenhouse effect is an undeniable phenomenon of atmospheric physics - you coat a planet in a heat reflecting gas and less heat escapes. Whether you think the effect of this is big or small, it is physics - unless you believe in santa claus, you cannot deny the greenhouse effect.
As to various comments about the free market - don't make me laugh. The only thing free about our energy markets is bad information. Control of access to energy is nothing less than life or death for nation-states. Do you really think that those with the power to do otherwise would leave that up to "the market" and leave it to be "free"? Just look how quick we were to abandon free market principles in the face of the breakdown of the credit markets. (note to those who think: did we really have free market principles to abandon?).
Alright L's and G's - what say ye?
one, that since the contraction model presents so many problems, we should focus more efforts on pushing forward with space development. If we pushed for colonies rather than planetary sites, which is a feasible option that readers should investigate, we could be reaping the energy benefits as soon as other environmental initiatives, and at a cost about as expensive as land development in Manhattan.
two, that readers should be wary of social initiatives that increase anti-social behavior both as traditionally defined (theft, lying, infidelity) and as newly defined, behaviors that are anti-nature, ungreen, behaviors that defy the design of the environmental component or its optimum use for mankind, behaviors that go against nature. Clearly social virtue seems to be the best option when our individual comfort so much depends upon the behavior of others at the dinner party. Morally disciplined men and women are as much a resource as clean water, as this post indicates! Men and women who have been taught that all creatures must at times subordinate individual pleasure to some higher benefit, the good of another. Men and women who have been taught that there are constraints on their individual "freedom:" to act as they feel like acting.
I suggest that readers try viewing their own personal media choices for a few days using this new filter. They might find that we have built a virtual temple to acting exactly as we feel like acting, and make fun via movies, commercials, and news emphasis, of models like motherhood that involve self donarship rather than self aggrandizement--in fact, motherhood is the chief victim, followed shortly thereafter by fatherhood, especially when that role involves any form of leadership or the discipline of the family, for 'discipline' in any form is anathema.
In short, we need, for prosperity, one God, the Church, and confession. Who knew?
On Jan 02 05:21 PM Freedoms Truth wrote:
> That is welcome GOOD NEWS if indeed the stupidity of CO2 regulations
> is stopped dead in its tracks. Global warming is not a crisis, CO2
> is not a pollutant, and blaming man for what is mostly natural climate
> change is a hoax.
> Lets look at the data, look at the chart in this article:
> travismonitor.blogspot...
>
>
> Since 2005, most of the warming since 1980 has been erased. Now,
> I ask you - did Al Gore predict this in his mock-umentary? Nope.
> He lies and calls it a crisis.The fearmongerers predicted 1C of warming
> by now - ooops, of by about .. 1C.
> We are talking a minuscule 0.2C rise in 5 decades, making it clear
> that claims of huge impacts due to CO2 are either (a) false or (b)
> masked by massive natural cooling (unlikely, but if true suggests
> that we should crank up the coal plants to ward off the coming ice
> age).
>
>
> We are lucky indeed that natural variability has kicked in on the
> cool side recently, if only to give honest people a warning that
> the Global Warming fearmongerers are hoaxers. Had the 'crisis' been
> global cooling, all the news of recent cooling would have been blamed
> on man. Instead .... the reality of cooling is ignored in the news
> and the farce of a 'warming planet' continues, even as cool weather
> harms crop yields.
>
> We have bogus and noxious 'cures' for a problem that doesnt really
> exist. Cap-n-trade will harm the economy and be of no help to the
> environment; limited and taxing CO2 will only shift industry to places
> like china where the environmental impact will be WORSE (no pollution
> controls at all);
> The stupidity of believing in hoaxes like "global warming is a crisis"
> is indeed a luxury at best and a hysterical poison at worst.
>
> Good news indeed if we finally realize that CO2 should NOT be limited
> as it does us no harm.
A 'couple' of replies to your 'observations'
On Jan 03 11:18 AM SteveB/Colorado wrote:
> Reading some of the comments on this thread is amusing. "Let the
> markets fix the problem:" not to rain on a nice parade, but unregulated
> markets got us into the current economic mess and gave capitalism
> a bad name in the process.
>
> "Global warming is a hoax:" then maybe there is a rational (not
> a right wing hysterical explanation) reason for what I've observed
> with glaciers receding in the past 20 years. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Kenya,
> the Alps, Caucasus Mtns. of Russia, southern Andes, Rockies: I've
> seen them all over a period of time and SOMETHING is going on.<br/>
>
Yes, its not that global warming is a hoax, its that man-made global warming is a hoax. Global warming has been occurring since before the industrial revolution. We had a cooling trend before that and a global warming trend before that. What's more is that scientists know there is a direct relationship between solar activity and the heat on this planet and the sun has seen an increase in solar flareups.
> "Solar is a pipedream".....fu... it seems to be working well here
> in the West and the technology is getting better year by year; same
> for wind power. Yes, both are subsidized to a degree--but we're not
> subsidizing oil consumption with all our massive spending on roads??
Solar and wind are a pipedream as a viable economically competitive source for anything more than a drop in the bucket in our electrical transmission needs. Neither runs 24/7 and they still cost more per kilowatt. We do subsidize them and pay higher rates still. But as long as we keep it quite small its a manageable luxury. That isn't to say we won't one day make either more efficient and economical sources, it just isn't there yet.
> One thing Freedoms Truth wrote is a good idea: an oil tariff so there
> is a floor under oil prices. That makes sense.
See Subsidyeye's response to this above.
Frankly, I'm not enamored with exporting billions to the middle east. I'm not anti-oil but for the sake of security do desire a better energy hand here in the U.S. There are a lot of ideas I would like to see pursued. I believe in a all stones turned over approach. I vehemently disagree with the type of governmental intervention in the energy market that would see the government taxing arm or tariff arm manage our energy future. The ramifications of this disastrous thinking is a country that will forever relinquish any hope of competitiveness in the world economy. If I was China, India, Russia, or Brazil, I would hope America would follow this path. They won't because they aren't that stupid. They will then have the means to put to bed American economic dominance for good.
> jack
> jack
Is anyone OK with the fact that oil dependency has wrecked our economy over and over again since the early 70's? Is a bout of double-digit unemployment and inflation every few years an acceptable price to pay in exchange for commuting to work in 3 ton vehicles that make us feel more masculine? Are we OK with OPEC scheduling our recessions?
Are we OK with spending a trillion dollars a year driving ships around in the Persian Gulf and fighting oil wars to try to maintain our supply? Are the lives of 1,000 soldiers worth a $1 decrease in the price of gas? If not, what is the exchange rate nowadays? Are we OK with our main oil suppliers funding Hamas, Hezbolla, Russia's dictatorship, and the FARC? Are trillions of dollars in military funding and tens of thousands of dead soldiers not a form of subsidy for oil?
Are we OK with the possibility of a 2nd great depression if the oil supply gets cut off (for any reason: war, embargo, peak oil)? Are we OK with taking a calculated risk of desperate poverty just so we can sit in traffic for hours of our lives commuting 40 miles back and forth to work? Is reading a book while riding a train that miserable?
There you have it, plenty of conservative reasons why we should get off oil. It may cost a lot, but the downward spiral of the status quo is more expensive.
Re: AUTO44
Great comments, Hold that thought on getting the most out a BTU, I am hoping that issue can be addressed in the next year or two. You are right Fossil plants average about 60% and Nuclear plants just 40% thermal efficiency. I don't recall % for combustion engines, I do recall reading that 18 pounds of carbon dioxide is emitted for every gallon of gasoline used.
I am a Technician with over 35 years experience. I believe that considerable improvements can be achieved for two reasons. 1st, by burning hydrogen and pure oxygen (eliminates NO2 and losses due to the nitrogen content of air) and 2nd, NO gaseous emissions. I do not know how much heat content can be recovered from the pure H2O that is the result of combustion of Hydrogen with Oxygen. Any way the heat content of the water may not be much. Current technology, the temperature of the flue gas is determined by the dew point of the flue gas. The lowest flue gas temp that I have seen was 275 deg F. Any lower condensate starts to form and soon afterwords the metal duct work is lost due to corrosive flue gas condensates. May not seem like much until you realize that Millions of pounds of flue gas waste per hour pass through each smoke stack everyday.
Economically burning hydrogen for steam generation is just one of the many benefits of the CLEAN COAL / CLEAN HYDROCARBON Technology that is available TODAY. It has been Independantly verified. I know this process to be a fact that can be verified by anyone with a Chemistry or Physics background TODAY! If you chose to view the Patent application.
On Jan 02 02:07 PM Steve in Greensboro wrote:
> Finally, some good news!
As long as people are willing believe the politically motivated denier propaganda campaign rather than the entire world scientific community we will continue to hear idiotic statements and remarks like we see here.
Listen up deniers.
Not one of the lists of skeptic scientists that you have been duped by is valid. They are all phony lists with very little basis in reality.
The actual number of climate scientists who disagree with the AGW theory is about 1/10 of 1%. And most of those have been thoroughly discredited in the scientific world.
The consensus among scientists is overwhelming in support of the IPCC findings
What can one say to someone more willing to listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh than practically the entire world scientific community.
The national academy of science of every nation that has one is in support of the IPCC, as are the earth science faculty of every major universty in the world. Anyone who believes the denier anti science nonsense is a fool.
At this point it is the same as believing the scientists who said cigarette smoke was harmless, because the tobacco firms paid them to say that. It is no different. It is not one bit different than that.
Show me a climate scientist who disagrees, who isn't paid by oil money.
Your opinions have been bought and sold by one of the biggest propaganda campaigns in history, paid for by the fossil fuel industry.
Deniers are ready to listen to the guy who started the Oregon Petition with it's phony list of skeptical scientists, regardless of the fact that he has a theory that the industrial revolution has increased biodiversity on earth and that the more CO2 we pump into the atmosphere, the more wonderful and lush life on earth will be. I'm not making this up. This is who they listen to, rather than the actual climate scientists who have studied the issue for at leat 20 years independently, and over 30 years for some. By the way, the group who started the Oregon Petition does not contain a single climate scientist. The list was compiled by passing around what amounted to a forged National Academy of Science document to fool some scientists into signing it. It has been completely debunked.
www.sourcewatch.org/in...
But deniers cling to this list like it was the gospel truth.
Want more examples? The deniers have not a single scientific leg to stand on, so they endlessly repeat arguments that have been disproven by science, some as long as 20 years ago. But that doesn't phase them. They know better than the tens of thousands of climate scientists. These arguments have become urban legends, with not a shred of truth. Yet deniers expound on them hundreds of times a day on the internet. They are BS. Abslolute BS, period. Ideology is no substitute for critical thinking. Deniers choose the former over the latter.
How about right wing propaganda mill Heartland Institute, who Exxon funds, and which is one of the leading denier spin mills. They issued their list of experts in Texas who disagree with the IPCC. Here's the list of 4.
emergency room physician
petroleum engineer
policy analyst
energy expert
NOT ONE CLIMATE SCIENTIST
There are dozens if not hundreds of climate scientists in Texas but the Heartland Institute can't get a single one on their phony list.
How about Senator Inhofe's phony list of 413 "prominent scientists" who disagree? This too has been thoroughly debunked. The list includes.
20 economists:
44 television weather men:
70 scientists with no expertise in climate:
84 scientists paid by the oil industry:
3 dead people:
scientists who agree with the IPCC
And anthropologist and a historian who are outspoken in their support for IPCC:
James Peden, who calls himself an atmospheric physicist even though he long ago left climate science, to be a web designer:
Inhofe and Morano misinterpreted a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters.
They claimed that it showed proof that the sun was responsible for the warming that's been observed in the last 100 years. The paper they quote says exactly the opposite from what they claim. This has been verified by the author of the paper.
Think there isn't vast and overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming? See here.
www.logicalscience.com.../
"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics."
-Dr. James Baker - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The AGW theory as reported on by the IPCC in the fourth assessment of over 20 years of research has been called the most thoroughly peer reviewed scientific paper in the history of science. There were over 900 peer reviewed papers on climate change. Not one opposed the conclusions of the IPCC
The same small list of well known climate change deniers is repeated endlessly. If you study the denier material you will see the same names over and over again.
Like Fred Singer
Fred Singer has not had a peer reviewed paper published in 20 years. He is linked to the fossil fuel industry and was once a hired gun for the tobacco industry to give "expert" testimony that cigarette smoke is not bad for you. He also believes that CFC don't deplete the ozone layer in the atmosphere. This is a well established scientific fact, but not to Singer.
And Lindzen
Linzen is paid $2,500/day to be a consultant for the fossil fuel industry. His trip to Washington to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuel co. Lindzen appeared in "The Great Global Warming Swindle" a documentary that was denounced by the Royal Society, the chief scientific advisory group to the British government, and the equivalant of our National Acadamy of Science. Some parties threatened to sue the director of the film for gross misrepresentation of science
Roy Spencer and John Christy are both well known scientists among the climate change denier crowd . These two single handedly gave deniers amunition for a skeptic argument, about whether satellite data confirmed the global warming that the surface data showed. Deniers used this argument for a decade, encouraged by Spencer and Christy. It is well known that Spencer and Christy made serious and numerous errors in their data analysis. They were wrong. But this skeptic argument is still repeated all the time by deniers. Read more here: climateprogress.org/20.../
Maybe you've been swayed by the movie "The Great Global Warming Swindle".
Look at what you believe.
The one and only "scientific advisor" for the movie is Martin Livermore, who has no scientific credentials other than being the director of an online right wing think tank called The Scientific Alliance, which was established by the anti-green lobbying and public relations company, British Aggregates Association.
One credible climate scientist, Dr. Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at MIT was quoted out of context and "duped" into appearing in the documentary. He says the movie was grossly distorted and as close to pure propaganda as anything since WW2.
He is considering filing a complaint with the British broadcast regulator, Ofcom.
There is Tim Ball, a retired professor of the department of geography at the University of Winnipeg. In the documentary, he is listed as Professor Tim Ball, University of Winnipeg, Department of Climatology. There is no Department of Climatology at the University of Winnipeg! He has not published a research paper in eleven years.
And then there's Dr. Paul Reiter, who's connected with the Annapolis Centre for Science Based Public Policy, another right wing think tank, which received $763,500 from Exxon Mobile.
and there's
Dr. Paul Copper
Listed as an "Allied Expert" for the Natural Resource Stewardship Project (NRSP), a lobby organization that refuses to disclose it's funding sources. The NRSP is led by executive director Tom Harris and Dr. Tim Ball. An Oct. 16, 2006 CanWest Global news article on who funds the NRSP, it states that "a confidentiality agreement doesn't allow him [Tom Harris] to say whether energy companies are funding his group." The NRSP also has ties to Canadian energy-sector lobbyists.
www.desmogblog.com/sea...
And I have only scratched the surface of this phony disinformation denier campaign and it's gullibe adherents.
National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
NASA
Woods Hole Resesarch Center
US Geological Survey (USGS)
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
American Association of State Climatologists
Federal Climate Change Science Program, 2006 (the study authorized and then censored by Bush)
American Chemical Society - (world's largest scientific organization with over 155,000 members)
Geological Society of America
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
American Association of State Climatologists
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
American Astronomical Society
American Institute of Physics
American Meteorological Society (AMS)
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Stratigraphy Commission - Geological Society of London - (The world's oldest and the United Kingdom's largest geoscience organization)
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Royal Society, United Kingdom
Russian Academy of Sciences
Royal Society of Canada
Science Council of Japan
Australian Academy of Sciences
Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
Brazilian Academy of Sciences
Caribbean Academy of Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
German Academy of Natural Scientists
Indian National Science Academy
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Royal Irish Academy
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy)
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Union of Concerned Scientists
The Institution of Engineers Australia
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)
National Research Council
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospherice Sciences
World Meteorological Organization
State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
International Council on Science
Deniers would have you believe that somehow all these organizations and the thousands of scientists from 120 countries who have been doing the research for 20 years, and over 30 years for some, are all scamming you in some dark conspiracy. Wow, and they call the scientists alarmists!
However I'm afraid that many true believers in the world of crackpot theories went through a painful divorce with reality a long time ago and don't care about evidence or the scientific method. They have their own little world of alternative "news" sources, echo chamber websites, ameteur "research", and books about how the mainstream conspires to suppress their opinions on bigfoot/aliens/alterna... medicine/non-organic oil/colon cleansing/free hydrogen/cold fusion, etc. I'm sure you've read Michael Shermer.
Nonetheless, the hard work of people like you is necessary, because the moonbats are willing to work twice as hard to spread their ideas / validate their identities.
O.K. The Proclaimer. You are reading between the lines; clever. Seeking Alpha? You are ON. It is a lot more involved than just a quest for a max-out by brainstorming and reengineering the Laws of Physics and Thermodynamics and Hydraulics, to arrive at "Zero Point Energy", not limited to the DOE dream of a Novel “Energy Storage” by a magic, fostering “Near-Zero O&M, as well as aiming to deliver power to the grid at less than 6 cents/kWh. As to a process, cheaper than all fossil fuels, stand alone, as well as any renewable, not limited to uranium as a fuel, YES, there is; a Super Hybrid Facility, comprised of multi-components, scavenging each other produced energy’s residual, being equal to produced energy, fostered by the Recovered (virtually free) Energy Components, that can produce electric power at less than 4 cents/kWh. No other fossil fuel can do that. Also, YES there is a process that can beat by a mile the O&M of the SWRO (Seawater Desalination by Reverse Osmosis), again “scavenged (free) recovered sources”, both in BTU, Heat Rate, Condensation Capacity’s Factor, et al, all the way of producing crop’s irrigation water, that is there times cheaper.
However, that is only a part thereof of what I am talking about. I am going to quiz you, and welcome your interrogatory in return. (YES, I am one of these Socrates brain child 65 years of age, aiming to deliver Super Alpha and I will, together with out team and participants).
Q. Is the wholesale price, on the open market, for tomatoes over $1/lbs?
Q. Can a Super Hybrid Facility, fully integrated and in synergy with crops (tomatoes) production facility, utilizing far more advanced than organic and hydroponic process, deliver 50 lbs/square feet of tomatoes (6-cuts/year), at O&M cost of less than 15%, (EBITDA at 67%)?
Q. Is the maximum/minimum Market Price Referent for wholesale electric power at over $92/mWh and as low as $42/mWh, respectively?
Q. Is the maximum/minim wholesale rate for the process water (potable at another rate) commodity at $1,880/acre-feet and as low as $330/acre-feet, respectively?
Q. Can just 500 hectares of tomato super-greenhouses (latest inventions, a lot more protected by other means than by a Patent Pending), integrated and in synergy with a Super Hybrid Facility, yields $570 million/year in revenue, at O&M cost of less than $85 million/year, having a total development cost of less than $100 million (you need over 1,000MWe coal-fired power plant to generate such revenue, however at O&M cost of over $300 million, [cost of coal, transportation, sequestration, et al myriads and at a development costs of not less than $500 million] )?
Q. Where is the lowest farm labor cost, say $11/day, to grow, produce and deliver tomato to the US Markets?
Q. Do you think that above COMPLEX can be develop for 3-times less than any fossil fuel/SWRO plants?
Q. Which Regulatory in which country will kiss your ass to bring them all of herein above (Exuberant Tax Revenue for them, on their platform’s standards)?
Q. Why, even the GE’ CEO, said “It is a Hell to get anything done in US, so we’ll do it elsewhere”?
Q. Do you think that above processes are not environmentally friendly?
Q. Do you think that above is not in the process of being implemented and without any participation by any of Seeking Alpha folks, nor from any one, not limited to “Zero-Gov-Subsidy”?
Until the next round, if any, Respectfully, Nick the Greek Socrates.
You have many question, allow me to answer in this manner: Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Good Point, agree, Yes it does benefit the Enviroment. The same can be said for Ray & Jim's process.
Mr Siry, I believe that Nick has something very real to offer Seeking Alpha readers, although hard to understand, in his contributions.
Oh....Who are Ray & Jim? Clue: They each hold Patents that have benefited the Environment for over 20 years!