The Science of Climate Change

GW Johnson · 2021-09-26 13:58:37

Methanol can be a motor fuel or a turbine fuel, but is not particularly desirable in that role. Its characteristics are similar to ethanol as a motor or turbine fuel, except that you use even more of it (at 6:1 air:fuel) than you do ethanol (9:1 air:fuel), and it is far more corrosive to materials.

It is quite valuable as a feedstock for making other chemicals, however. The fly in that ointment is that the chemical industry overlaps very much with the petroleum industry. It would rather see the natural gas they already own be made into methanol then final product, than some "renewable" source of that methanol. Methanol from natural gas is already the cheapest known commercial way to get methanol.

Only if the geothermal-derived methanol is cheaper than natural gas-derived methanol, does Iceland have a snowball's chance in hell of selling that geothermal-derived methanol.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2021-09-26 14:03:26)

SpaceNut · 2021-09-26 14:13:05

All that we are doing with the carbon is recycling it but the amount of what we use are still in excess to what we renew for use by capturing the atmospheric co2.
We really do need to change to a non carbon based fuel to make it change of course at a cost to the consumer that is on par or less than the alternative in gas, oil, desiel, gasoline ect...

GW Johnson · 2021-09-26 14:31:53

People keep forgetting that not all carbon is the same in its effect. There is an enormous quantity of carbon that cycles between the biosphere and the atmosphere. The fact that a huge chunk of that is atmospheric CO2 is why we are not a glaciated iceball of a planet. That was at around 280 ppm CO2 outside of ice age glacier advances. We are now over 400 ppm. 300 ppm when I was a boy.

It is the carbon that got sequestered for hundreds of millions of years as fossil fuel that is the problem. We unburied it and put it into the atmosphere as CO2 over the last 3 centuries or so, most of it during the last 100 years, and most of that in the last 50 years. When you do that, you increase the inventory in the atmosphere, leading to a warmer planet, precisely because its infrared transmissibility isn't perfect.

If there were a way to use the biomass carbon for our fuels, we would not be having this warming problem. But that isn't possible: most of the biomass carbon we use goes for food, and that food carbon is the only biomass carbon we currently know how to use instead for fuel. Food vs fuel is the "killer" with that notion. So far, cellulosic ethanol is NOT a "go" here. Corn ethanol is.

If instead you go to hydrogen as a non-carbon fuel, there isn't much available anywhere, unless you make it out of water. Traditional electrolysis in my younger days was about 6% energy efficient. I think we do better today at around 20%. But when fossil fuel power plant energy efficiencies are around 45%, do you see why the price of hydrogen-for-fuel is likely to be impractically-high for some decades to come?

What we really need is natural gas as a "bridge fuel" while we scale-up and deploy the newer nuclear technologies that lessen the accident risk, lessen the bomb-grade materials risk, and lessen the quantity-of-nuclear-waste risk. That would be thorium breeder technology combined with U-233 reactors that have natural-circulation emergency cooling built-in.

We also need a grid-scale energy storage solution so that solar and wind can pick up more of the grid capacity load. If electrolysis energy efficiency were to approach 40%, that energy storage solution might be as simple as electrolyzing hydrogen on-site.

Between the new nukes and the wind and solar, plus some natural gas, we can really do this. But there are some pieces to this puzzle that we still need to find.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2021-09-26 14:44:21)

SpaceNut · 2021-09-26 14:53:11

Natural gas cost
https://wallethub.com/edu/energy-costs-by-state/4833

number of us producing wells
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_prod_wells_s1_a.htm

current fuel consumption
https://www.statista.com/statistics/189 … tural-gas/

kbd512 · 2021-10-10 19:58:32

GW,

Why should we bother with converting Natural Gas to Methanol to begin with?

Natural Gas is already 100% viable as a fuel, and used as such in heavy duty trucks. CNG works in gasoline / diesel / gas turbine / oxy-fuel / boiler type engines equally well. It burns cleaner than anything we have, except for pure Hydrogen. The Russians made a commercial airliner fly using LNG. Houston has fleets of CNG powered trucks, meaning truck yards full of them, as far as the eye can see. If there was an efficient way to convert Methane to Propane, that's the only significant "improvement" that I could see, over the CNG we're already using.

SpaceNut · 2021-10-10 20:05:38

Methanol post 251 was or is seemingly more about free energy to create than to convert.

edit

Only if the geothermal-derived methanol is cheaper than natural gas-derived methanol, does Iceland have a snowball's chance in hell of selling that geothermal-derived methanol.
GW

CNG and LNG are both very useful in a variety of equipment over diesel or gasoline such as a fork lift.

kbd512 · 2021-10-10 20:13:46

There is no "free energy". We only generate the crop yields required to produce corn Ethanol using gigantic diesel-fuel powered machines.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-08-11 10:27:00

Germany's increased coal, oil use will be temporary, Scholz says
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/16/germany … -says.html

Previous investment news in Asia

China set to begin first trials of molten salt nuclear reactor using thorium instead of uranium
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-28/ … /100351932

The new reactor, built at Wuwei on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northern China, is an experimental prototype designed to have an output of just 2 megawatts.

'The Fate Of The World’s Biggest Ice Sheet Is In Our Hands'

https://spaceref.com/earth/the-fate-of- … our-hands/

“We used to think East Antarctica was much less vulnerable to climate change, compared to the ice sheets in West Antarctica or Greenland, but we now know there are some areas of East Antarctica that are already showing signs of ice loss. Satellite observations have revealed evidence of thinning and retreating, especially where glaciers draining the main ice sheet come into contact with warm ocean currents.”

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-08-11 10:34:03)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-08-15 07:34:47

Trends in Global Atmospheric Methane
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5007

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-s … arctic-ice
Rise expected to be relatively mild (0.7-1.7m), but then more changes
but next one will be crazy (2-8m) ? currents may change so in some places Sea level will actually fall, other places it will increase more steep rise.

tahanson43206 · 2022-08-15 07:56:16

For Mars_B4_Moon re #259

Thank you for finding and posting the NASA report on analysis of antarctic data from decades of observations.

The report includes description of the difficulty of interpreting satellite data, as well as the human time required, and the many hours of computing time on NASA servers.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2022-08-15 12:45:19

https://www.yahoo.com/news/comes-coming … 25050.html

Calliban would surely approve the dismal tone of this piece, if he were to see it.

What Comes After the Coming Climate Anarchy?
Parag Khanna
Mon, August 15, 2022 at 7:55 AM
TOPSHOT-SPAIN-WILDFIRE
The blaze of a wildfire lights up wind turbines on top of a mountain in the Moncayo Natural Park in the northern region of Aragon, seen from the town of Borja, late on August 14, 2022. - Hundreds of firefighters battled a blaze in northern Spain today that forced hundreds to evacuate and devastated swathes of land, officials said. Credit - ANDER GILLENEA-AFP/Getty Images
In 2021, global carbon dioxide emissions reached 36.3 billion tons, the highest volume ever recorded. This year, the number of international refugees will cross 30 million, also the highest figure ever. As sea levels and temperatures rise and geopolitical tensions flare, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that humanity is veering towards systemic breakdown. The superpowers will be no salvation: Locked in a “new Cold War,’ the U.S. careens between populism and incompetence, while China remains locked down at home and alienates many nations abroad.
We’re not very good at predicting the next five days, let alone five years. Our daily headlines underscore how we are overwhelmed by crises: COVID-19, natural disasters, ruptured supply chains, food shortages, international conflicts, spiking oil prices, failing states, refugee flows, and so forth. But these are not isolated incidents. They are manifestations of complexity—a global system in which the environment, economy, demographics, politics, and technology constantly collide in unpredictable ways. It was not a single event that caused the Roman and Mayan civilizations to collapse, but rather this complex collision of chain reactions.
Today it’s fashionable to speak of civilizational collapse. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) states that just a 1.5 degree Celsius rise will prove devastating to the world’s food systems by 2025. Meanwhile, the most recent IPCC report warns that we must reverse emissions by 2025 or face an irreversible accelerating breakdown in critical ecosystems, and that even if the Paris agreement goals are implemented, a 2.4 degree Celsius rise is all but inevitable. In other words, the “worst case” RCP 8.5 scenario used in many climate models is actually a baseline. The large but banal numbers you read—$2 trillion in annual economic damage, 10-15% lower global GDP, etc.—are themselves likely massively understated. The climate bill just passed by the Senate is barely a consolation prize in this drama: a welcome measure, but also too little to bring rains back to drought-stricken regions in America or worldwide.
What if there isn’t a calm that lies beyond the current storm? In 1994, war correspondent Robert Kaplan famously wrote of a “coming anarchy” based on his reportage from West Africa to the Balkans, pointing to a swath of societies that had long since become failed states. Supply chain disruptions and inflation have accelerated the spread of state failures like cancerous mutations across the globe. COVID, climate change, and conflict – all point in the direction of a far more global trajectory for Kaplan’s thesis than even he pessimistically warned at the time.
Let’s assume that we are indeed hurtling towards the worst-case scenario by 2050: Hundreds of millions of people perish in heatwaves and forest fires, earthquakes and tsunamis, droughts and floods, state failures and protracted wars. Henry Gee, editor of the magazine Nature, wrote in an essay in Scientific American in late 2021 that even absent the hazards of climate change and nuclear war, humankind was heading towards extinction due to declining genetic variety and sperm quality.
No wonder that philosophers such as Roy Scranton claim we need to “learn how to die.”
But even in the most plausibly dire scenarios, billions of people will survive. Today’s world population stands at eight billion people, quadruple the population of a century ago. Even with accelerating Boomer mortality, low fertility, and the possibility of another global pandemic, a devastating world war, and climate induced famine, the world population would likely still stand at 6 billion people by 2050. Furthermore, we are not just a collection of local civilizations but a connected global system. Some nations and regions will break down, but others will become vital hubs for our future civilization. Unlike centuries past, billions of humans are physically capable of relocating if the need arises. We can preemptively reorganize ourselves for collective survival—if we try.
So where will the young survivors of today’s storms gather over the next 20-30 years? Which technologies will be the platforms of our future societies and economies? What new model of civilization awaits us?
Climate models reveal that each degree of temperature rise shifts the “climate niche” of optimal human habitation northward from the present 20-30 degrees latitude. In the 19th century, tens of millions of Europeans fled famine and hardship, resettling in the Americas, and a similar number of Chinese and Indian laborers circulated around the plantations of Asia. In the 20th century, imperial collapse, World Wars, ethnic expulsions, state failures, and economic migrations drove hundreds of millions of Europeans, Latinos, and Asians to resettle in new homes. Now, in the 21st century, more than one billion will be displaced by climate change. The decimal place is shifting to the right.
Where might you live in 2050? Humankind is on the hunt for locations blessed with sufficient water, food, and energy resources. Canada and the Great Lakes region, central and northern Europe, southern Russia, and other regions are becoming relatively more livable (despite volatility in temperature extremes) in the decades ahead. From the British Isles to eastern Anatolia to Japan’s main island of Honshu, there are many depopulated yet verdant zones that can support larger numbers.
Currently the latitudes most suitable for human habitation are currently the ones with the most rapidly aging populations. While the overall population of northern states has plateaued, countries such as Canada, Germany and Kazakhstan have become major migration magnets, even melting pots, as they collect skilled workers and refugees. Canada’s economic policy is its immigration policy, the engine of its diversification beyond commodities into technology and other sectors. Russia, the world’s largest country by landmass, is among the fastest de-populating due to elderly mortality, low fertility, and other maladies such as alcoholism and cancer. Russia’s politics don’t indicate a liberal cultural metamorphosis into a Eurasian Canada, but its dwindling demographics have already prompted it to import Uzbeks, Indians, and other foreigners to serve in its construction and agriculture sectors. In 2021, Russia was the world’s largest wheat exporter; in the future, almost all of its farmers may be foreigners.
This picture taken on October 15, 2021 shows a child standing on a dry land in Bala Murghab district of Badghis province. - Drought stalks the parched fields around the remote Afghan district of Bala Murghab, where climate change is proving a deadlier foe than the country's recent conflicts.<span class="copyright">Hoshang Hashimi- AFP</span>
This picture taken on October 15, 2021 shows a child standing on a dry land in Bala Murghab district of Badghis province. - Drought stalks the parched fields around the remote Afghan district of Bala Murghab, where climate change is proving a deadlier foe than the country's recent conflicts.Hoshang Hashimi- AFP
Labor shortages and refugee flows–from the Latino migrant caravan to Africans crossing the Mediterranean on rafts–may compel today’s borders to open much further than recent years of populist xenophobia would suggest. But it won’t be a universal phenomenon. A global grand bargain on migration, whether for political or climate refugees, isn’t in the cards. Each region will display different dynamics based on its geography, politics, and culture. North America may continue to peacefully absorb populations from Latin America to India, while Europe may continue to violently resist the influx of Africans and Arabs and instead favor higher skilled Asians and Russians.
The fate of the territory presently known as “Russia” is crucial. Moscow’s politics today suggest an isolationist nationalism, but geography paints a different picture—especially Russia’s proximity to the most populous, young, resource-hungry, and climate-stressed regions of the planet: Asia. Russia’s aggressive lashing out at the West will only increase its dependence on the East to import goods and export raw materials. Its mineral-rich terrain is also Eurasia’s central crossroads. Imagine if we were to terraform Russia’s vast and warming Siberian terrain, rich in rivers and farmland, into an archipelago of settlements that absorb and feed billions of people. Large-scale population resettlement is a plausible—and even essential—mechanism for preserving our numbers.
In a truly cataclysmic climate scenario, most won’t be so lucky. But many of the technologies and tools that will underpin tomorrow’s scattered settlements are present today. The most obvious and essential is hydrological engineering. As rivers dry up and drought grips the world, Europe’s Alpine societies will channel precious glacier melt into underground aquifers to irrigate their fertile lands. Where water tables are falling and rainfall dwindling, drought-resistant seeds will be deployed. Atmospheric water capture can fill tanks that drip into aquaponic vegetable gardens that require no soil at all. Solar energy and battery storage can power underground greenhouses and even water desalination plants. Small scale and even portable nuclear reactors can power cities and even transfer energy into grids before being transported to recharge other cities.
World Future Council chairman Herbert Girardet, a respected figure spanning the worlds of architecture and agriculture, has long encouraged a retreat from the far-flung just-in-time world of the “petropolis” towards the more localized “ecopolis”. In his recent book Regeneration, veteran climate activist Paul Hawken underscores the roadmap towards a genuine version of today’s urban policy meme of the “15-minute city”—not just walkable but autonomous: reforestation (and using forests as farms) and renewable energy for electrification.
Across the world, there are societies already well-positioned in terms of their agricultural self-sufficiency and low supply chain dependence. According to the Sustainable Development Index—a ranking of countries that meet their people’s needs with low per capita resource consumption—the best performers aren’t Norway or Australia but Costa Rica, Albania, Georgia, and other less populated countries around middle-income status. These places may well ride out climate volatility better than more advanced societies that depend heavily on imported food and industrial goods for larger populations. Michigan, Scotland, Northern Thailand, New Zealand, and many other pockets of reliable agricultural output and relative climate resilience may become havens for those seeking refuge from the uncertainty of supply chain dependencies.
In Four Lost Cities, Annalee Newitz suggests a coming “period of global urban abandonment.” Across America, so-called “prepper” communities are multiplying in states such as Oregon, armed with amateur HAM radios, ready-to-eat SPAM, and, of course, automatic weapons. The post-apocalypse could be a dispersed and neo-medieval world of to-each-his-own settlements no longer interested in some form of continental federalism. Perhaps they may recongregate in novel formations beyond today’s static political boundaries.
Millions of people may also become nomadic, moving like migratory birds between places where the climate allows. American youth offer an interesting window into the next generation’s sixth sense for survival. Unlike older generations, Millennials and Gen-Z may not know where they’ll live and work next month, let alone next year. That’s one reason why they’re emptying out of overpriced and disaster prone coastal cities to places such as Nashville, Charlotte, and Denver. And most of them aren’t buying homes. The memory of the mortgage crisis a decade ago that eviscerated their parents’ savings, together with the trend towards remote work, made mobile trailer homes a hot purchase during the pandemic lockdown. Mobile communes have sprung up featuring portable solar power and water desalination. Mobile and tiny home dwellers have crypto-currency wallets and use task-sharing apps to find work—and just drive there for a week, a season, or a year at a time. They’ll never die in a flood or heatwave.
Behold, then, a youth population—our demographic future—that is already scattering from coastal to inland, over-priced to affordable, dangerous to stable, and establishing new settlements that can relocate as circumstances dictate. Google X’s Astro Teller speaks of the need for “movable cites”—something that is already feasible with 3D printed housing and mobile homes, wastewater recycling and hydroponic agriculture, solar and wind power and switchable battery packs.
Across the Atlantic, Britons are also finding creative ways to adapt to climate change and economic stress. The U.K. is at the cutting-edge of the new movement towards 3D printed homes, even ones that can be moved on the backs of trucks (provided there are enough drivers). A little less mobile are BoKlok’s flats and terrace homes, prefabricated “flat-pack” homes developed by IKEA and Skanska, that are popping up as entire villages from Bristol to Sussex. Like other mature economies, Britain faces massive social pressure to deploy affordable housing. With post-Brexit property prices recovering and professionals relocating nationwide to take advantage of remote work, Britain has a chance to alleviate the aching shortage of affordable housing, and to do so in places where people actually want to live.
What these surviving societies and communities will have in common is that they are able to unwind the complexity that has felled our predecessors. They rely less on far-flung global supply chains by locally growing their own food, generating energy from renewable resources, and utilizing additive manufacturing. A combination of prepping and nomadism, high-tech and simple, are the ingredients for species-level survival.
These demographic, geographic, and technological shifts are evidence that we are already doing things differently now rather than waiting for an inevitable “collapse” or mass extinction event. They also suggest the embrace of a new model of civilization that is both more mobile and more sustainable than our present sedentary and industrial one. The collapse of civilizations is a feature of history, but Civilization with a big ‘C’ carries on, absorbing useful technologies and values from the past before it is buried. Today’s innovations will be tomorrow’s platforms. Indeed, the faster we embrace these artifacts of our next Civilization, the more likely we are to avoid the collapse of our present one. Humanity will come together again—whether or not it falls apart first.

(th)

Void · 2022-08-16 09:43:21

There are a few things that put me off about the greenhouse/climate change/climate crisis people.

For instance Bernie Sanders and some others want to kill shale oil and gas. This makes no sense, as when people don't have any other options, they will then burn coal. But the reality seems to be that we internal and external enemies, that keep recommending that we undress and bend over and apologize for needing to be raped by our enemies.

I cannot respect such people at all as I know that they are ignorant lackies or the most malicious enemies of hope that could possibly exist.

I believe that the sea level has been reported to have elevated by 8 to 9 inches since 1880.

This could be partially from greenhouse gasses, and also perhaps natural fluctuations. After all we may still be emerging from the last ice age.

If we still had the Mammoth Steppes as a major biome, we might be panicking, because it was changing into boggy tundra.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_steppe
Image Quote: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ … o_2008.png

The people at Pleistocene park have a theory, that I only partly support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park

They think that with the disappearance of large animals such as the Mammoth, the penetration of permafrost into the ground during the winters has been reduced. They expect that animals trample the snow and help release heat from the permafrost in the winter. They also seem to be aware that trees are part of the problem as well, as they have entered into what was once a vast productive grassland, and helped tundra also to replace the grasslands.

The greenhouse effect may be an actual factor, and in fact I do believe it likely is.

But the Evergreen-Tree-Albedo effect is also likely to have contributed.
That, the "Evergreen-Tree-Albedo" would be a positive feedback situation, where the northward march of evergreen trees would warm the environment, and that would push the snow belts northward, and also even the ice caps of the north.

As I recall, evergreen trees need about 2 weeks of weather above 50 degF, (10 degC), to propagate. So, this could also be its own mechanism to cause albedo oscillations. If evergreen trees loom above the snowpack, then they collect solar energy and warm the climate.

And while the Mammoths being extinct may indeed allow evergreen trees to take over grasslands and marshy tundra, also humans, aborigines they tend to call them used to purposely burn forests, to encourage more productive grasslands. Savana is probably the best location for humans to prosper, as the grasslands produce more food and the forests produce wood for building and shelters, and fire.

So, the tree-huggers who plant evergreen trees are simply idiots.

My guess is that if we killed about 1/2 of the evergreen trees in the northern hemisphere we would cool off the Earth with an albedo change.

The situation for trees that lose their leaves, may not be the same. Reportedly those may actually cool the Earth, they probably do not absorb as much sunlight in the winter as do evergreens.

One thing that trees do also is siphon Methane from the undergrounds to their bark, where microbes apparently consume it. This then would produce CO2. So, although I am not sure, it may be that culling about 1/2 of the evergreen trees would reduce the amount of CO2 and perhaps Methane that are released from decaying organics underground. And again, if you cool the soil the process of decay is reduced, and so less CO2 and Methane would be wicked up into the atmosphere.

I worked in process control for some of my working life, and I do understand feedback.

Many of these people who are the so called "Greens" are simply ignorant people who don't have very good plans.

And many of them just want to get in charge of some sort of social movement.

And many of them don't like industry and technology, as they are not good at it, but they are good at manipulating people. And probably some of them are in 5th columns, supported by enemies of technological societies that may not be feudal.

It is the nature of some southern peoples to not be technological, but to prefer feudalism.

And then there are societies that are not feudal but not really liking representative governments, some of our competitors.

So, I say, that I will not willingly undress and bend over, and I will not apologize either.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2022-08-16 10:14:38)

Calliban · 2022-08-16 10:49:40

Bernie Saunders jets around to conferences all over the place. He is one of those 'taxes are for little people' kind of guys. Don't do as I do, do as I say.

kbd512 · 2022-08-17 01:51:47

Calliban,

That is the primary issue I have with our climate change advocates. Very little of what they assert aligns with how they behave. There are a handful of very wealthy people who are virtually unaffected by the end results of their ideas. Their wealth insulates them from the effects of what they're trying to implement, so they have no issues with the associated policies. Purchasing a $60,000 new electric car vs a $5,000 used gasoline car is a non-issue for them. This is no different than people who are over 6 feet tall asserting that nobody who is less than 6 feet tall should be allowed to work or have children because they're not "special enough" to do so. The reasoning is precisely the same, even if the subject matter is very different. It's special rules for special people. Everybody lives on the same planet, but we're all going to operate by different rules and somehow achieve a very specific end result that is fraught with complications.

Has that ever worked well in the past?: No.

Is it likely o work well in the future?: Obviously not.

Whatever assertions are made about the end goals, climate change is being abused as an excuse to implement more authoritarianism, implement more special rules for special people, and to micromanage the daily lives of ordinary people who are simply trying to make ends meet and enjoy some small measure of peace and prosperity along the way. There is no end to the "if we just did X, then our problems would be solved" line of argumentation. After you accept the underlying logical fallacy, nothing else is off the table. Anything can be justified with reasoning that reductive in nature. Moreover, rather than using some organizing principles to reduce emissions, it's treated as carte blanche to go directly to the most extremist forms of government overreach and the taking of things by force from ordinary people.

The fact of the matter is that the sky is not falling and the world is not ending. The reaction of certain people to the fact that everything is constantly changing has gone off the rails during the past 10 years or so. There's too much hysteria, not enough uncommon sense or acceptance of "what is", and no accountability when policy decisions don't produce the intended result.

Germany spent enough money on wind and solar power plants to get 100% of their energy needs met by nuclear power, which is also almost entirely CO2-free, but instead they squandered their money on projects that never did and never will produce the desired end result, because the basic math surrounding energy density and materials consumption are hard mathematical concepts not amenable to irrational human beliefs that refuse to accept counter-factual evidence. There's clearly an issue with ideological purity or dogmatic belief at play. Potential solutions that are feasible using existing technology are not being accepted or pursued. I've yet to see anyone accept the simple but accurate explanation that photovoltaics, wind turbines, and batteries are simply not scalable to the degree required, unless energy and it's proxy (monetary cost) are utterly ignored, nor particularly sustainable.

I recently read an article about "recyclable" wind turbine blades made possible using a new resin that can be degraded in a weak acid. The article asserts that because the fabrics can be separated from the resin, the blades can be recycled. The article clearly stated that the fabric from the composite would then go into hard-sided suit cases and other low-stress / low-strength applications related to consumer products. That is a much better EOL process than burning them or tossing them in a landfill, and my hat's off to the inventive scientists involved, but one cannot help but notice that you can't recycle the recovered fabrics into new wind turbine blades without completely melting down the glass or carbon fibers by putting them back through the most energy-intensive parts of the manufacturing of these high-strength fabrics. The end result is that brand new fabrics are required to make new wind turbine blades, so the demand for new fiber never decreases over time.

The photovoltaics may contain recoverable metals and glass, but again, true recycling into new photovoltaics is every bit as energy-intensive as the original process. When cheap fossil fuels are no longer available, then what?

A society built on steel, concrete, glass, and recycled hydrocarbon energy from existing stocks of CO2 is truly sustainable. Transforming the planet into an energy electronics factory is likely not, especially if we're forced to use existing technology. For starters, we need to extract enough metals to make that all-electric / all-electronic future feasible. Until we do that, we're spinning our wheels. I'm baffled as to why reduction in total material demand is not a primary consideration for ultimate sustainability, unless these same people think environmentalism and infinite growth can coexist.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-08-25 05:17:19

Drought causes Yangtze to shrink

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Imag … _to_shrink

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-08-27 14:28:47

Climate change is increasing frequency of fish mass die-offs

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 … 131213.htm

kbd512 · 2022-08-27 15:01:00

Mars_B4_Moon,

Why did the researchers not look any further back than 2000?

Did climate history start at the year 2000?

Also, why focus solely on summer fishkills?

What about the winter fishkills?

What about the disease fishkills?

Do they even know for a fact that temperature alone killed the fish and disease or other factors played no part?

Why are they making projections about fishkills in 2100 based on such a tiny sample of sporadic events taken over a mere 13 years?

They're playing with 8 data points and projecting that forward. My uncle teaches stats at UT. This will be his last year. He's been teaching longer than I've been alive. I can already hear his admonishment over this nonsense.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-08-28 06:34:40

China Deploys Rain-Seeding Drones To End Drought in Sichuan

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles … in-sichuan

Seeding works by dropping an ice-forming agent like silver iodide into a cloud that already contains ample moisture. Rain droplets gather around the agent, gaining weight until they begin to fall. China has a long history of using the technology to water crop fields, cool blistering cities and make sure skies are clear for events like the Olympics.

SpaceNut · 2022-11-19 21:09:10

Which U.S. States Still Depend on Coal for Electricity?

15. Arkansas
Share of electricity generated from coal: 28.2%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -29.1%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 15,420,998
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 10.5%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 5,735,702
14. Kansas
Share of electricity generated from coal: 31.1%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -31.0%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 16,959,839
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 44.2%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 24,117,519
13. Colorado
Share of electricity generated from coal: 36.0%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -38.2%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 19,478,405
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 30.9%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 16,724,964
12. Montana
Share of electricity generated from coal: 36.4%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -47.0%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 8,490,284
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 59.4%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 13,872,119
11. Ohio
Share of electricity generated from coal: 37.2%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -37.2%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 45,008,596
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 2.9%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 3,500,737
10. New Mexico
Share of electricity generated from coal: 37.5%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -37.4%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 12,788,184
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 27.2%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 9,253,738
9. Wisconsin
Share of electricity generated from coal: 38.7%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -36.1%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 23,761,097
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 9.4%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 5,779,793
8. Nebraska
Share of electricity generated from coal: 51.0%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -22.3%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 18,788,647
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 28.9%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 10,648,740
7. Indiana
Share of electricity generated from coal: 53.1%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -38.9%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 47,772,885
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 8.2%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 7,364,544
6. North Dakota
Share of electricity generated from coal: 58.1%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -11.7%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 24,496,807
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 38.1%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 16,084,768
5. Utah
Share of electricity generated from coal: 61.5%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -28.0%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 22,806,021
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 12.5%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 4,644,687
4. Kentucky
Share of electricity generated from coal: 68.7%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -39.9%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 43,638,313
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 8.5%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 5,395,636
3. Missouri
Share of electricity generated from coal: 71.3%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -20.8%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 51,755,690
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 7.5%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 5,450,572
2. Wyoming
Share of electricity generated from coal: 79.4%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -22.6%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 33,359,104
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 16.1%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 6,763,997
1. West Virginia
Share of electricity generated from coal: 88.6%
5-year change in electricity generated from coal: -26.2%
Total electricity generated from coal (MWh): 50,216,398
Share of electricity generated from renewables: 6.2%
Total electricity generated from renewables (MWh): 3,496,285

Of course, the energy costs just keep going up.

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-19 21:22:00

For SpaceNut re #269

Thanks for this (to me quite interesting) report!

Please provide a link for forum readers (members or not) to be able to go look at the source.

For West Virginia, the sum of 88.6% and 26.2 % is more than 100% ...

In addition, the quotes do not indicate if the "5 year" statements are for reductions planned or actually achieved, or just aspirational.

Finally, the years covered are not indicated, so the report might be for 50 years ago, when practically all power was generated by burning coal.

These are not intended as criticism ... I'm simply asking for clarification ... I'm assuming the data are accurate. It's the context that is not clear.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2022-11-19 21:27:05

The quoted data is from the slides pulled in for a consolidated table.

There is a minus sign for the 5 year so these are not going to be 100% totals

kbd512 · 2022-11-20 16:39:04

tahanson43206,

The "missing context" is that China burned a bunch of coal to generate what some people are claiming is "renewable energy", and the total aggregate share of "renewable energy" that doesn't involve burning something went from 0.2% (48 years ago) to 2.2% (right now), half a century later. Unless mining and refining is going to increase by hundreds to many thousands of times present levels, without burning anything throughout the entire process, then there is no future to this obsequious climate religion that loves space rocks but hates people.

I've yet to read a single denial or rebuttal about my point that this new climate religion hates people, so it must be true.

The more of these coal-created "green energy" devices (all photovoltaics and wind turbines and batteries are 100% artifacts of fossil fuels consumption) are deployed, the more transparent this utter nonsense becomes. They cost a lot of greenbacks, they consumed a great deal of coal / oil / gas to create them, they don't last very long, and then they provided very little of the total primary energy supply, and mostly at times when it wasn't usable in any practical sense, so we continued burning natural gas or petroleum products or wood in lieu of coal.

Just because you didn't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen, and if we showed the pictures of how the "secret sauce" is made, everyone is nauseated by it. That adequately explains the climate religion hysteria following Michael Moore's "Planet of the Humans".

There is no storage using batteries, there are no magical new battery technologies, there never will be within the lifetime of anybody alive today, because math is real and math says everyone's feelings about math don't matter. Furthermore, math always wins when it comes to energy.

Houston is 100% powered by "green energy", but every gas turbine downtown is running at all times. You can hear it and smell it. Maybe they're powered by all the BS generated by these climate religious nutters.

What's next? A "coal battery" whereby you burn the coal to release the "green energy" it contains?

Oh wait, those are better known as "photovoltaic cells" or "wind turbines" or "batteries".

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-02-18 08:46:33

New technique maps large-scale impacts of fire-induced permafrost thaw in Alaska

https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/New_ … a_999.html

kbd512 · 2023-02-18 12:24:28

Mars_B4_Moon,

Their photograph shows that vegetation on their chosen "spot" grew back at least twice as high in 2020, as compared to 2011. That's more fuel for a potential fire, obviously, but only because there's real vegetation there now, as opposed to when the ground was frozen tundra.

Void · 2023-02-18 19:02:23

This might interest some: https://phys.org/news/2023-02-elephant- … -late.html
Quote:

FEBRUARY 17, 2023
Elephant seal remains show Antarctic sea was warmer in the mid-to-late Holocene
by University of Maine

Quote:

"Southern elephant seals today tend to haul out in much warmer areas than the Ross Sea," Hall says. "We were able to use the presence of their molted skin and hair, as well as some bones and mummies desiccated by the polar wind, to show that these seals had once made the Ross Sea their home."
The results from the molted skin, bones and other remains showed that southern elephant seals not only once occupied the Ross Sea, but were present on the Victoria Land Coast from about 7,000 and 500 years ago. The presence of the seals at this time indicated that there was a reduced amount of ice covering the sea during this time of the Holocene, which coincides with other records of ocean temperatures and circulation in the Ross Sea.
"Our work shows that for much of the Holocene, the Ross Sea was less icy and presumably warmer than it is today and this warmth may have driven retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from the Ross Sea during the last 8,000 years and future warming could continue to push ice retreat," Hall says. "However, ocean temperature may not be the entire story."
More research is needed, but the scientists also found a few elephant seals that dated to a much older period just before the last glacial maximum, which suggests that warm water may have existed during the buildup of the ice sheet in the Ross Sea. If the presence of warm ocean temperatures immediately prior to and perhaps even during build-up to the Last Glacial Maximum ice position could be confirmed, it would suggest that factors other than a drop in ocean temperatures, such as lowered sea level, might have been critical in causing ice-sheet advance in the Ross Embayment.

So, glaciers and ice shelves collapsing do not necessarily give a true indication that it was because of "Global Warming".

This is not unlike how I again hear the news spew harping about glaciers in mountains disappearing.

If the oceans are warming, there should be more precipitation in the mountains.

And we are generally hearing about low river water in many places. Again global warming should circulate more water through the atmosphere.

And yet the news spew continues.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2023-02-18 19:08:16)

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