14,000 World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021[

EdwardHeisler · 2021-07-29 09:05:32

14,000 scientists warn of "untold suffering" if we fail to act on climate change

https://www.mic.com/p/14000-scientists- … e-82642062

World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/adv … 79/6325731

Calliban · 2021-07-29 10:33:22

There are too many human beings on Earth, consuming too many resources, too rapidly. Climate change due to fossil fuel consumption is only one aspect of the same problem - over consumption due to overpopulation. Other aspects are fossil fuel depletion, depletion of concentrated mineral ores, food shortages and habitat destruction. We can look at alternative energy sources to partially mitigate fossil fuel depletion and climate change. There are no perfect solutions even in this limited area. But there are partial solutions. But ultimately, growing human numbers and consumption on a finite planet is a problem for which there is not (and never can be) a solution, other than to reverse the trend. In a finite environment, continuous growth of anything is not sustainable and is therefore not possible, beyond a very limited timeframe. No number of wind turbines or solar panels or nuclear reactors allow us to escape this predicament.

One of the most dangerous aspects of exponential growth is that limits can initially appear very far off. But continuous doubling of population or energy use, can bring us right up against them very quickly. Back in 1940, the world consumed just 6 million barrels of oil per day. At that rate of consumption, global oil reserves of 3 trillion barrels would have lasted 1400 years. And CO2 emissions from burning that oil were negligible. Oil looked quite sustainable back then. Fast forward eighty years and we burned through 50% of that 3trillion barrels and are now burning 100million barrels per day. Reserve life now is just 40 years and we are close to (and probably past peak production). Exponential growth means that far away limits can be approached very quickly. If population and consumption are stable, then it is possible to explore technological solutions to bring humanity into balance with its environment. But as soon as growth is introduced, nothing can help for very long and ultimately, nothing will help at all. Like bacteria in a petri dish, Earth bound humanity, will grow until it exhausts the supply of agar and will then die off a lot more quickly than it took to grow, because most of its resource base (including fuels, minerals and biomaterials) are essentially fossil - they regenerate at a rate far slower than humanity is using them.

Our only hope of escaping this trap is to rapidly reduce Earth bound population and resource consumption along with it. My great hope is that the introduction of affordable space travel, provides an option for doing this that doesn't involve starvation, disease and nuclear weapons. People that dismiss space colonisation as an unworthy use of resources, have not grasped the nature of the trap that humanity is in. There is no future worth living if we remain trapped on a finite ball of rock with depleting resources. Whereas Earth is often described as our cradle, it is in danger of becoming a prison, where man is eternally trapped having depleted the resources that once allowed him to contemplate escape. The window to space has opened, but if we do not climb through it relatively soon, it may close forever, as the resource base of mankind declines to the point where such ventures are no longer sustainable. At this point, mankind can be written off as a failed experiment, forever imprisoned on a depleted and burned out planet.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-07-29 10:54:05)

tahanson43206 · 2021-07-29 12:57:55

For Calliban re #2

SearchTerm:trap population vs resources
SearchTerm:Population trap on Earth

There seems to be a solution to the population issue ... From what I understand, education of women (and freeing them from control of men) automatically reduces population reproduction rate below 1.0.

Thus, the initiative elsewhere in the forum to rapidly introduce an abundance of energy (and insuring it results in education of women and freeing them from control of men) seems likely to have the effect of reducing population growth and potentially reducing it to zero. We are rapidly on our way to 8 billion citizens of Earth. I think that's enough.

(th)

louis · 2021-07-29 17:19:42

So are you saying 14,000 scientists have never been wrong before?

You never engage with facts Mr Heisler but can you name a single island a single island that has yet been submerged by rising sea levels as opposed to
sinking land?

EdwardHeisler · 2021-07-29 18:00:12

Are you claiming those 14,000 scientists are wrong and you are right? Your credentials please. A point by point penetrating fact and science based refutation of the scientists statement by you would be considered. Can you do that? Probably not. Wearing a Trump campaign button isn't sufficient for us pro-science people.

Last edited by EdwardHeisler (2021-07-29 18:11:03)

louis · 2021-07-29 18:56:15

Do you know anything about philosophy, the Queen of Knowledge? If you did, you’d know that any argument from authority (e.g. ‘scientists are always right’) is always fallacious. Sadly as an ignoramus on such matters you are completely unaware how foolish your argument looks.

I asked you for a crucial item of evidence to show your argument is correct. Despite, no doubt, furious Google searching you couldn’t find anything. If you had any honour (a foreign concept to you) you would admit you couldn’t supply any factual evidence to support your XR Armageddon BS.

EdwardHeisler wrote:

Are you claiming those 14,000 scientists are wrong and you are right? Your credentials please. A point by point penetrating fact and science based refutation of the scientists statement by you would be considered. Can you do that? Probably not. Wearing a Trump campaign button isn't sufficient for us pro-science people.

Calliban · 2021-07-30 05:49:47

The fact of the matter is that the Earth's climatic conditions are different to what they would be without human influence. Some of that effect is due to CO2 emissions, some methane, some due to changes in reflectivity. There are feedback effects due to cloud cover, methane emissions from thawing tundra, etc. These feedback effects are both positive and negative and it is very difficult to model how the Earth's climatic system will respond to man made injections of greenhouse gases. We simply do not know how many people might be killed (or saved) in the future due to human induced climate change. In many ways, it is the uncertainty of the situation that makes it more dangerous.

One reason to doubt the most severe climatic projections, is that they tend to assume levels of future fossil fuel consumption that are unlikely to be realistic. Global oil production has very likely already peaked. Coal production has peaked. Natural gas will not be far behind. It is highly unlikely that these declines will be reversed, because the EROI of remaining reserves are inferior to what has already been consumed. With falling net energy yield, an ever increasing proportion of yielded energy must be reinvested in new capacity, just to keep production flat. Eventually, the products of that energy become unaffordable to marginal consumers and total production declines. The final peak may resemble a decline in demand. Either way, depletion will ultimately lead to declining production, meaning that future CO2 emissions will be lower and declining compared to what they are today. We stand at the peak of fossil fuelled civilisation.

Billions of people will die early in the 21st century, not because of fossil fuel emissions, but due to fossil fuel depletion. Global population has risen from 1 billion to 8 billion in only two centuries. Feeding this many people is possible only due to the agricultural productivity enabled by industrial agriculture, with its diesel powered machines, natural gas derived ammonia based fertilisers and pesticides. Over the next few decades, the energy supply keeping those people alive will disappear. No one will care about emissions when that happens. It won't be storms or rising seas that kill the billions that are doomed to die early. It will be simple lack of food, as the once abundant energy that keeps them alive is rapidly withdrawn.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-07-30 06:02:37)

tahanson43206 · 2021-07-30 06:08:56

For Calliban re topic ...

Billions of people will die early in the 21st century, not because of fossil fuel emissions, but due to fossil fuel depletion. Global population has risen from 1 billion to 8 billion in only two centuries. Feeding this many people is possible only due to the agricultural productivity enabled by industrial agriculture, with its diesel powered machines, natural gas derived ammonia based fertilisers and pesticides. Over the next few decades, the energy supply keeping those people alive will disappear. No one will care about emissions when that happens. It won't be storms or rising seas that kill the billions that are doomed to die early. It will be simple lack of food, as the once abundant energy that keeps them alive is rapidly withdrawn.

Your prediction would be correct if no one did anything to head off that dismal fate.

I believe (admitting I could be wrong) that it is within your power to make sure that does ** not ** happen. You have the ability (or at least, it ** appears ** you have the ability) to design a modular reactor that can be mass produced and distributed (under suitable supervision) to every place on Earth where people need reliable, abundant power.

It will take a large work force to bring about this happy end state, but it has to start with a single individual with a vision of sufficient size to match the circumstances. I am more than happy to try to assist you at this early stage of the process. The circumstances in the United States are favorable. There is a mood to spend lots of money to address major issues of the day, so I'm hoping to catch the wave of enthusiasm while it is building and before it crests.

Along the way, I hope to enlist other needed skill sets as the need arises.

Edit: years ago, when I was just joining the work force, a gent named Tom Watson bet his company on a bold advance in computing technology. The bet was successful, and I was lucky enough to catch the wave of economic growth that occurred in response to that decision.

Something similar will happen if the right combination of people can set liberation of atomic energy on a global scale into motion.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-07-30 06:13:25)

Calliban · 2021-07-30 07:05:41

tahanson43206 wrote:

For Calliban re topic ...
Billions of people will die early in the 21st century, not because of fossil fuel emissions, but due to fossil fuel depletion. Global population has risen from 1 billion to 8 billion in only two centuries. Feeding this many people is possible only due to the agricultural productivity enabled by industrial agriculture, with its diesel powered machines, natural gas derived ammonia based fertilisers and pesticides. Over the next few decades, the energy supply keeping those people alive will disappear. No one will care about emissions when that happens. It won't be storms or rising seas that kill the billions that are doomed to die early. It will be simple lack of food, as the once abundant energy that keeps them alive is rapidly withdrawn.
Your prediction would be correct if no one did anything to head off that dismal fate.
I believe (admitting I could be wrong) that it is within your power to make sure that does ** not ** happen. You have the ability (or at least, it ** appears ** you have the ability) to design a modular reactor that can be mass produced and distributed (under suitable supervision) to every place on Earth where people need reliable, abundant power.
It will take a large work force to bring about this happy end state, but it has to start with a single individual with a vision of sufficient size to match the circumstances. I am more than happy to try to assist you at this early stage of the process. The circumstances in the United States are favorable. There is a mood to spend lots of money to address major issues of the day, so I'm hoping to catch the wave of enthusiasm while it is building and before it crests.
Along the way, I hope to enlist other needed skill sets as the need arises.
Edit: years ago, when I was just joining the work force, a gent named Tom Watson bet his company on a bold advance in computing technology. The bet was successful, and I was lucky enough to catch the wave of economic growth that occurred in response to that decision.
Something similar will happen if the right combination of people can set liberation of atomic energy on a global scale into motion.
(th)

Thanks Tom. But I think the situation is a lot worse than you realise. There are close to 8 billion people on Earth and that number is still rising by hundreds of thousands every day. I don't think it is possible to increase nuclear power production quickly enough to maintain that scale of population overshoot. Essentially, a large fraction of those eight billion are already doomed whatever we do now.

Certainly we should do what each of us can to mitigate the approaching apocalypse. But even under the best of conditions, I doubt that it would be possible to produce enough nuclear reactors (or anything else) to offset declining fossil fuel production. Had we started in the 1990s, the lead time may have been sufficient. But we have left it too late to realistically avoid what is coming. Too few people in government or academic circles have cottoned on to the magnitude of the challenges that we face. Most of them simply do not understand the indispensable role of energy in the production of goods and services.

Remember that from now on, any investments of energy into new energy producing assets, whether they be reactors, wind turbines or oil wells; will need to be made from a shrinking annual production of surplus energy. Most of that production will be used to meet essential immiediate needs (like food and water) and to maintain the systems that keeps society functioning. As surplus energy declines, withdrawing energy for future investments, even desperately needed investments, becomes more and more difficult, painful and less tolerable to those that have to go without in the immediate term, when they are already suffering from declining consumption. This is what people mean when they describe our situation as an energy trap. On the down slope of fossil fuel production, diverting energy into non-immiediate needs, means asking a million to die today, to save two million a few years down the line. In the future, this will make it more difficult to build things like nuclear reactors, even if the power they produce is needed more than ever.

Under a mass production scenario, nuclear reactors have higher power density and lower embodied energy than just about any energy source except high grade natural gas deposits. But those systems will take time to develop, even if enough people were to cotton on to the urgency of the situation straight away. Building the required production capacity will be energy intensive and time consuming. And due to the long doubling time of fissile material in a breeder reactor cycle, there may not be enough uranium and plutonium in the world to build the required reactor capacity.

In short, even if the world woke up to reality tomorrow, the time constants involved in fossil fuel decline and build up of nuclear capacity, would make it difficult to do more than cushion the rate of decline of surplus energy. We needed to act before we reached the depletion dominated side of the fossil fuel production curve. Whatever we do now, the world faces increasingly severe shortages of the resources needed to keep people alive, in the years ahead of us. War and conflict over what remains, will further deplete resources, hampering efforts to even cushion the decline.

I think we are pretty screwed. And yet very few people are truly aware of their predicament. They think carbon dioxide from burning fuels is going to kill them. The truth is that the absence of those fuels is going to kill them. And they have resisted with grim determination, the very technological options that stand a chance of saving them. For most of them, it is now too late anyway.

My own powers to affect a better future are miniscule. When I write, half a dozen people at most will listen. And my own powers to build things like nuclear power plants are pathetically small. Bill Gates is in with a better chance. Every day that people delay his plans, will ultimately be paid for with tens of thousands of lives in a future that they cannot yet imagine and yet have no hope of now escaping.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-07-30 07:41:03)

louis · 2021-07-30 09:01:35

One thing we can be sure of: climate never stands still. One 30 year period will
Be slightly different from the next. Even on the pre/industrial period we had the Medieval warming and the Little Ice. Age. So we should begin by accepting that climate change is perfectly natural. I was born in the cold period in the UK between the 40s and 70s. Colder than what went before and what came after. Next we should accept that climate change is usually a mix of benefits and negatives depending on where you are located. Also climate change is hard to measure owing to urbanisation,heat island effects, sinking tidal gauges etc. Finally let’s not be pessimistic. We now have realistic alternatives to fossil fuels, namely green energy plus storage (with iron-air battery technology looking like a slam dunk winner). No one will be building fossil fuel facilities in 30 years’ time. If we then need to take carbon out of the atmosphere we can begin doing so cautiously (even putting the brains of 14,000 scientists together humanity doesn’t know how climate really works, so caution is advisable).

Paragraph

Calliban · 2021-07-30 10:57:22

louis wrote:

One thing we can be sure of: climate never stands still. One 30 year period will
Be slightly different from the next. Even on the pre/industrial period we had the Medieval warming and the Little Ice. Age. So we should begin by accepting that climate change is perfectly natural. I was born in the cold period in the UK between the 40s and 70s. Colder than what went before and what came after. Next we should accept that climate change is usually a mix of benefits and negatives depending on where you are located. Also climate change is hard to measure owing to urbanisation,heat island effects, sinking tidal gauges etc. Finally let’s not be pessimistic. We now have realistic alternatives to fossil fuels, namely green energy plus storage (with iron-air battery technology looking like a slam dunk winner). No one will be building fossil fuel facilities in 30 years’ time. If we then need to take carbon out of the atmosphere we can begin doing so cautiously (even putting the brains of 14,000 scientists together humanity doesn’t know how climate really works, so caution is advisable).
Paragraph

You have not remotely understood the situation. And you are selling a solution that is not realistic. Take a look at the graph below.

https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018 … 68x542.png

Global primary energy consumption is 150,000TWh per year. It is an almost unimaginable quantity of energy. That tiny, pathetically thin sliver at the top, is the energy harvested from all the wind turbines and solar panels produced to date. About 85% of primary energy is derived from fossil fuels. Another 10% is traditional biofuels. Hydropower, nuclear power and wind and solar power, collectively constitute the 5% balance. Wind and solar power constitute 1-2% of global energy production.

The problem that we are facing is that the surplus energy from fossil fuels is declining and very soon fossil fuel energy production will experience absolute declines. During that period, surplus energy from fossil fuels may decline by 3-5% per year. The rate of production of wind turbines and solar panels, would need to be orders of magnitude greater than it is at present to fill that gap. But it gets worse. The amount of surplus energy available to support production of new energy systems will decline as surplus energy declines. It will become more and more difficult to afford the investments needed for each unit of new energy. Now throw into this balance, the fact that wind and solar power systems require an energy and materials investment 1-2 orders of magnitude greater per unit of harvested energy than fossil fuels or nuclear power. It offers a poorer rate of energy return on energy invested.

Pouring resources into wind and solar energy projects during a period of net energy decline, will actually make the problem worse. What you are selling is not just ineffective, it is counter productive. The only replacement energy sources with any chance of helping in that situation, are those with greater EROI than the fossil fuels they are replacing. To actually reverse the decline in net energy requires energy sources with high EROI, capable of scaling up rapidly. High EROI means high power density, I.e nuclear energy. That is the only way that a declining net energy investment can generate an increasing supply of energy.

But even with the best will in the world, it will be difficult to scale up nuclear power capacity quickly enough to fill the gap left by declining fossil fuel production. Declining energy production means declining food production and billions of people very quickly won't get enough to eat. When that happens, it will be scant consolation to anyone that CO2 emissions are declining. World population has grown some 8 times in 200 years due entirely to the energy subsidy of fossil fuels applied to agriculture. If food supply declines even at the same rate as fossil fuel net energy declines, the result would be unimaginable levels of human suffering.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-07-30 11:20:51)

kbd512 · 2021-07-30 18:10:57

EdwardHeisler,

EdwardHeisler wrote:

14,000 scientists warn of "untold suffering" if we fail to act on climate change
https://www.mic.com/p/14000-scientists- … e-82642062

World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/adv … 79/6325731

Even if you refuse to acknowledge it, there's an actual difference between climate science and climate activism.

FACT 1
The article from the first link you provided below was written by a man who spent 1 year at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. No major or minor area of study was listed in his Linked-In profile. No other educational or professional qualifications for writing about climate science were provided in either his Linked-In profile or on MIC's website.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajdellinger

FACT 2
AJ Dellinger's interpretation of what actual scientists have written is every bit as meaningless as yours is, even if the 14,000 scientists have personally contacted him, unless he recorded and then reproduced the content of their conversations or written exchanges, verbatim. No evidence of a personal interaction (such as a Q&A session) with an actual climate scientist backing his claims was provided, so I will assume there is none, until evidence for the same is provided by AJ Dellinger.

FACT 3
AJ Dellinger has utterly failed to provide sources for his wild assertions, likely because he's not a scientist and doesn't know how. He's a staff writer for MIC. What he's doing is not reporting on climate science at all, it's reporting on the activism initiated by other activists, who happen to be scientists, but not climatologists.

In the same way that I don't ask a cardiologist for his opinion on a brain tumor, because they're not qualified to render informed opinions, I don't ask ecologists for their opinions about climatology, because they're ecologists, not climatologists (people who study climate) or meteorologists (people who study weather) or oceanographers (people who study oceans) or astronomers (people who study stars and other space-based phenomenon that can and does affect climate and weather and oceans). Expertise in cardiology doesn't translate into expertise in neurosurgery, nor vice versa.

The article he provides a link to, his version of citing sources without detailing what, specifically, he has cited, was written by people who are not climate scientists at all, but ecologists, who then make another series of activist claims and assertions with no source material backing up their claims. In short, they're statements of dogmatic belief, no different than religious dogma, not statements backed by evidence, which is what actual science consists of.

FACT 4
From the first linked article, here is where climate activism very clearly overrides any actual climate science:

The paper published this week is an update on similar research conducted in 2019, which amassed signatures from more than 11,000 scientists. In the time since that paper was initially published, the world has suffered significantly from extreme weather events caused or made worse by climate change. In 2020, an estimated $63 billion in damage and $268 billion in economic loss was caused by natural disasters. Those events, along with the declining state of health for some of the planet's most important indicators, encouraged more than 3,000 scientists to join onto the latest iteration of warning letter. Now it's up to governments, industry, and the rest of us to actually heed these warnings — or suffer through what comes next.

There's zero science presented here, one useless trivia factoid with no context or explanation given, buried somewhere under a literal mountain of activist BS.

In the time since that paper was initially published, the world has suffered significantly from extreme weather events caused or made worse by climate change.

This is dogmatic religion, not science. To begin with, "the world" cannot suffer anything whatsoever from any change in climate or lack thereof, because "the world" is an inanimate object. Maybe he meant "people living on Earth", but that's not what he actually said. If AJ Dellinger can't distinguish between inanimate objects that can't be physically harmed, and living breathing animals, then there's nothing I trust about his assertions or conclusions about what climate scientists have stated.

In 2020, an estimated $63 billion in damage and $268 billion in economic loss was caused by natural disasters."

Useless trivia alert! This is largely the end result of people who falsely claim to believe in science who are, to this very day, continuing to build ever greater numbers of very expensive structures in cities along coastlines and river basins that are subjected to repeated periodic flooding events through time, since long before humans existed.

The fires caused by a total lack of forestry management and human activities are the other major "natural disaster", but humans setting off fireworks at "gender reveal" parties in the middle of California's forests, or power lines arcing and sparking and igniting forest fires, don't count as "climate disasters" in my book. Those fires accounted for over $12B of the $95B in economic losses in 2020 that NOAA claims were climate-associated "natural disasters". Your guess is as good as mine, regarding what's "natural", i.e. "not man-made", about setting off fireworks in a forest or running high voltage power lines through forests.

Those events, along with the declining state of health for some of the planet's most important indicators, encouraged more than 3,000 scientists to join onto the latest iteration of warning letter.

More personification of inanimate objects. The world is not now and can never be "healthy" or "unhealthy". Whether or not humans or other species of plants and animals can live here is another matter, but the distinction is very important and very real. Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Now it's up to governments, industry, and the rest of us to actually heed these warnings — or suffer through what comes next.

Wildly wrong.

1. Governments are collections of people with competing personal interests and some shared interests, all vying for political power.
2. Industry is the reduction of scientific principle to repeatable engineering practices.
3. His quip about "the rest of us heeding fair warning given" is only partially correct. Now it's up to everyone else to evaluate what activists masquerading as scientists are telling them through assertions about data they're not qualified to interpret, or assertions in the absence of data, but without the benefit of knowing much of anything at all about science, and without the benefit of large numbers of actual climate scientists telling people what to make of the data they've collected.
4. Up to this point, all of these climate activists have been little different than "Bill Nye The Science Guy"- someone with no actual science education and experience, but I guess being an engineer is better than having no education regarding scientific principles whatsoever. As long as it agrees with dogmatic religious beliefs, who cares, right?

FACT 5
In the paper / "warning letter" that AJ Dellinger cites, the "Conclusions" section from the "concerned scientists" is every bit as fact-free as AJ Dellinger's writing, so I can forgive him for not knowing the difference between science and activism.

This is from the second link you provided to "BioScience" (the source of the "warning letter", that was published and signed by a bunch of people who are not climatologists):

Mitigating and adapting to climate change while honoring the diversity of humans entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems. We are encouraged by a recent surge of concern. Governmental bodies are making climate emergency declarations. Schoolchildren are striking. Ecocide lawsuits are proceeding in the courts. Grassroots citizen movements are demanding change, and many countries, states and provinces, cities, and businesses are responding.
As the Alliance of World Scientists, we stand ready to assist decision-makers in a just transition to a sustainable and equitable future. We urge widespread use of vital signs, which will better allow policymakers, the private sector, and the public to understand the magnitude of this crisis, track progress, and realign priorities for alleviating climate change. The good news is that such transformative change, with social and economic justice for all, promises far greater human well-being than does business as usual. We believe that the prospects will be greatest if decision-makers and all of humanity promptly respond to this warning and declaration of a climate emergency and act to sustain life on planet Earth, our only home.

There seems to be a complete lack of science embodied in their conclusions.

...honoring human diversity...

Whatever the hell that means, it has nothing to do with science.

Schoolchildren are striking.

That's a sure sign of poor parenting. I guess they're "protesting" having everything handed to them on a silver platter? I've taught my own children to show a little more gratitude for what they've been given.

Ecocide lawsuits

More meaningless word salad to me. It sure as hell isn't about science.

Grassroots citizen movements are demanding change

Who is demanding that everyone lives the way the Amish do? All the Democrats can decide to live like the Amish any time they choose. I promise you that none of my fellow Republicans will lift a finger to stop them. Nobody is forcing any of these hoity-toity kale latte sipping coastie liberals to fly in their private jets or to go to work in their private limousines.

As the Alliance of World Scientists, we stand ready to assist decision-makers in a just transition to a sustainable and equitable future.

Equity has nothing to do with climate science or science in general or science at all whatsoever in the real objective universe that real scientists can measure using real tools. The natural world has never been fair or equitable to different forms of life, nor will it ever be. Fairness and equity is a human brain construct, completely subjective in nature, and not measurable using any scientific instrument devised by human beings.

We urge widespread use of vital signs...

Someone needs to tell these fruitcakes posing as ecologists that the Earth doesn't have any vital signs. It's a giant space rock with an atmosphere and oceans of liquid water. It's an inanimate object. The rock will be fine, with or without humanity on it. I promise. If the Earth has fewer people on it who personify rocks, the world would be a better place for those who remain.

The good news is that such transformative change, with social and economic justice for all, promises far greater human well-being than does business as usual.

There's no such thing as "social and economic justice for all". This is ecologist activists pandering to "social justice" activists, some of whom pretend to care about environmental issues to further their own cause. Justice is an individualistic concept. There is no "group justice". If a crook steals something from some one person in a village, then the rest of the village is not automatically harmed, nor is the rest of the village responsible for the anti-social activities of that criminal, unless they helped him commit the crime. Giving birth to someone who later behaves in a criminal manner is not "creating more criminals", either. Personal behavior is an individual choice. You can either be cooperative / collaborative with your fellow humans, sometimes referred to as being "social", or exhibit behaviors that fall within the anti-social spectrum of behaviors. Unfortunately for everyone else, people who advocate for "group justice" frequently tend to be profoundly anti-social in nature.

We believe that the prospects will be greatest if decision-makers and all of humanity promptly respond to this warning and declaration of a climate emergency and act to sustain life on planet Earth, our only home.

And there it finally is- the statement of religious belief that all dogmatic deity worshippers make. Using energy to improve our lives is sustaining life. Whether it's use is agreeable to all or not is a political question, not a scientific one.

If these ecologists want everyone to live like the Amish do, then they can lead by example, by refusing to use jets and cars and computers and the internet. You, Mr Heisler, are welcome to join them in their quest to regress back to before industrialization human civilization. The rest of us are likewise free to carry on with our industrialization activities.

All of that ink was required to properly respond to that pithy "I follow the science" comment. That is why nobody listens to scientists. It's so cheap and easy to go sloganeering the way our activists do, yet so complicated and long-winded and boring as hell to fully explain why bad ideas with vague explanations or tenuous connection to reality are bad.

kbd512 · 2021-07-30 18:39:59

Calliban,

The UN's global demographics data would seem to indicate that what is actually increasing are the numbers of working age people and retirees, relative to youths:

Our World in Data - Age Structure

This is the UN's population projection out to 2100:

Population by bracket with UN projections, World

Maybe you see something different, but all I see is a youth population at or below replacement rate, the children of the Baby Boomers slowly aging out (as a Gen X member, I fall within this category), and a rapidly growing number of retirees who won't have anyone to take care of them.

Calliban · 2021-07-30 19:30:44

kbd512 wrote:

Calliban,
The UN's global demographics data would seem to indicate that what is actually increasing are the numbers of working age people and retirees, relative to youths:
Our World in Data - Age Structure
This is the UN's population projection out to 2100:
Population by bracket with UN projections, World
Maybe you see something different, but all I see is a youth population at or below replacement rate, the children of the Baby Boomers slowly aging out (as a Gen X member, I fall within this category), and a rapidly growing number of retirees who won't have anyone to take care of them.

Kbd, from your first link:

'In 1950 there were 2.5 billion people on the planet. Now in 2019, there are 7.7 billion. By the end of the century the UN expects a global population of 11.2 billion.'

Fossil fuel production would appear to be declining. Oil and coal are both close to or past their respective production peaks and surplus energy is falling faster than production, as EROI of residual production declines. Population has tripled since 1950, largely thanks to the mechanisation of agriculture and the use of ammonia based fertiliser produced using natural gas. What is going to happen to most of the Earth population, when surplus energy declines back to 1950s levels, something that will happen in our lifetimes? How can the Earth feed 7.7billion (let alone 11.2 billion) when fossil fuel production is only a fraction of what it is today?

Maybe we can make up that energy from another high EROI source. I certainly hope so. But I just cannot bring myself to believe that governments will be competent enough to pull a programme like that off. From where I am sitting we appear to be heading into a Soylent Green future, where everyone is poor and lives off algae paste.

kbd512 · 2021-07-31 00:13:10

Calliban,

Forgive me, but some of this stuff sounds exactly like the prognosticating of people who claimed that people would be starving in the streets of America, en-masse, by the year 2000. No such event ever came to pass, despite the abject idiocy of the people we continually elect to office. The only people who starve to death in America do so by choice. If America ruthlessly massacred all of the warlords in Africa and tin pot communist dictators elsewhere, nobody would starve, because a singular country truly can feed the entire world. Instead we send our military to the Middle East to guard the oil, just as President Trump said we were doing.

Trust me when I say that our politicians from both parties have been trying to screw up America for decades now, with their only real success being the indoctrination of soft-headed children who are too ignorant to know the difference between ideology and propaganda versus useful knowledge. If we fix that issue, then the rest is a self-correcting problem. To your point, people who are too stupid to figure out how badly they're being screwed over by people falsely claiming to care about them will absolutely be punished ruthlessly by the very people they elect to positions of power. It's almost comical how arrogant and ignorant the average politician is- the inevitable end result of the "you're not the boss of me, I can do whatever I want" Baby Boomer generation.

Fossil fuel production is a matter of money and power, not availability. We quit drilling here in North America because the Saudis and Russians were providing cheaper oil and gas. Our reserves didn't magically disappear merely because we intentionally stopped drilling here, but total production declined sharply because OPEC wanted more money for their oil, so they deliberately made it decline to increase the price of oil. If it gets high enough, we'll start drilling here again. Until then, we're back to using foreign oil and the increased emissions associated with transporting crude oil half way around the world. The Asians are in the same predicament.

People like President Biden both helped that process along and helped to increase our CO2 emissions at the same time he and his party are blathering about caring about climate change, either wittingly or unwittingly, through the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline. They did that so that the investment firm, Berkshire-Hathaway, owned by the Democrat's billionaire bundler, Warren Buffett, could make more money by burning even more oil to transport Canadian crude oil to market through their stake in BNSF, which has a near monopoly on railway tanker cars operated in North America. This made gasoline more expensive to produce, because our refineries require a mix of light shale oil and heavy tar sand crude to produce the cuts of products we want, but it was an entirely voluntary decision on the part of the decision makers.

America used gasoline rationing during WWII to prevent gasoline shortages. I expect that food production will take priority over driving to work for people who can work from home. Those who must travel to work can carpool, just as they did during WWII. My wife and I carpool to work whenever we can. She did the same thing with her coworkers for many years because they lived in the same area. It saves gas and money (less wear and tear on our vehicles by reducing yearly mileage) at the same time. Basically, some greater measure of reduction, recycling, and reuse are required. At the same time, we eventually need to re-capture and store some of the atmospheric CO2 to synthesize more hydrocarbon fuels, because batteries will remain a joke, by way of comparison to hydrocarbon fuels, for as long as you and I are likely to live. If we use nuclear rather than coal and natural gas to produce base load, then we won't have any shortage of light hydrocarbons for at least the next century.

Mazda's Skyactiv-X gasoline engine uses ultra-lean compression ignition during highway cruising and spark ignition under full load, so both passenger vehicles and semi-trucks can run off of gasoline or Propane or Methane that is optionally spark or compression ignited. As the computer control technology is perfected, we can start running everything off of light Hydrocarbons that are easier to extract or synthesize, such as Propane and Methane. The use of hydraulic hybrids is another feasible solution for fuel consumption reduction. The only horsepower you truly need is to go from 0-60 in 3 to 6 seconds. Maximum legal speed on nearly any road in America is 75mph. Whether your car can go faster or not is pretty meaningless. Doing so will garner a hefty fine or all-expenses paid (by you) trip to county lockup for going any faster.

Drag racing (America's motorsport) is all about acceleration, and electric motors win that contest every single time. As such, I expect that future practical motor vehicles for American use to consist of a bank of super capacitors to provide 10 seconds of power, or 1,250Watt-hours of stored energy to generate 600hp during that very brief period of acceleration, combined with highway cruising that only requires 25hp to 35hp of sustained output. That means a 50kg super cap bank (current Maxwell super cap technology is 25Watt-hours/kg) would provide more than enough juice for a 0-60 dash, with a tiny fuel-efficient motorcycle engine supplying cruising power for hours at a time using a few gallons of gas. City traffic is routinely 25mph or less, so more power than that is not a virtue for practical street use. That is the duty cycle for every passenger car / street vehicle. We don't need goofball solutions for problems like that. Teslas are every bit as backwards from a practical use case standpoint as current gas powered passenger cars. 0-60 matters. Sufficient cruising power matters. Wild acceleration beyond 75mph does not, but even if it did, only an electric motor would supply sufficient acceleration, and I can't think of a highway passing scenario where more than 20 seconds of acceleration would be required, because if it takes that long then you're not actually passing them by.

Anyway... On to gasoline powered trucks:

Skyactiv-X has a compression ratio of 16.3:1. In the new build 15.2L Caterpillar C15 ACERT heavy duty truck / marine diesel engines, a 16:1 compression ratio is used. John Deere heavy duty diesels are also 16:1. The ACERT range of engines is 400hp to 800hp. Virtually all heavy machinery outside of ships and mining presently uses the same type of engine (a 10L to 15L inline six cylinder diesel). There are also some V8 / V10 / V12 diesel engines out there for marine or stationary generator use, but relatively few. Skyactiv technology would allow diesel trucks requiring 400hp to 800hp to use gasoline with the same or better fuel economy. A larger displacement Skyactiv straight six could power nearly all heavy duty trucks, industrial farming equipment, and construction equipment. The John Deere X9 series combines / harvesters use engines that produce a maximum of 690hp, for example. Nearly every other piece of equipment they make uses less horsepower.

Engines generating 1,000hp or less covers nearly everything in use outside of aviation, shipping, trains, stationary generators, and mining. If commercial aviation figures out how to grow more of their own algae-based or plant-based synthetic kerosene fuels, as some American airline services are already doing, then we won't need to extract heavy crude, and can use heavy hydrocarbons only where replacements are impractical. Since the LNG tanker ships now use diesel engines running on natural gas, I presume that LNG can fuel other types of ships as well. A synthesis process for Propane would be especially useful, as Propane is indefinitely storeable without resorting to cryogenics.

Last edited by kbd512 (2021-07-31 00:38:13)

tahanson43206 · 2021-07-31 04:29:54

For kbd512 re #15

SearchTerm:propane part of detailed overview of hydrocarbon fuels use and history

i'm highlighting this detail from your comprehensive overview because I'm intrigued by the implication in the closing paragraph that a synthesis process to make propane does not already exist.

It seems to be generally accepted that methane can be synthesized, but (I gather) there must be something about the propane molecule that makes synthesis more difficult or perhaps more endothermic, or both.

In any case, the production of propane by nuclear power plants would seem to be a useful activity. In a recent post Calliban suggested production of ammonia from nuclear power plants, and you (and others) have provided support for that idea in the forum. However, I think that if propane can be produced and distributed for prices that are competitive with fossil fuel extraction techniques, we (humans) might have the ticket to use of nuclear power on a more aggressive scale.

If anyone with posting privileges can add to this discussion please do so.

If someone not currently a member would like to contribute to this discussion, please read Post #2 of Recruiting.

***
for kbd512 re Calliban's work in Nuclear is Safe .... do you have any preference for reactor size, in the context of selling the idea to your fellow Texans?

Is there a size that you think would be particularly interesting, so that it would have a chance of approval by the electorate if policy makers propose it for baseload electricity, for production of fuel, or for other purposes?

Edit at 6:50 local time:

Google went looking for information about synthesis of propane ... the top citation was one I was not expecting ...

About 6,440,000 results (0.79 seconds)
To make the propane, the team “hijacked the assembly line” of the biological process of fatty acid synthesis in E coli, introducing a group of enzymes (Thioesterase) into the bacterium. Two more enyzmes were then added to eventually turn the smelly fatty acid into propane.Sep 2, 2014
Propane made with renewable process for the first time | Gas ...https://www.theguardian.com › environment › sep › prop...
About featured snippets

This process seems to require more complex molecules as input. It might be worth expanding, since the supply of fat from animal production and from some plants may be sufficient to justify investment in the capability for delivery of heating gas and for fuel.

However, what I'm looking for is a method that takes water and CO2 as input and yields propane.

Edit at 7:01 local time ... my impression after a preliminary search is that kbd512's hint that there may not currently exist a method to make propane from water and CO2 may turn out to be right.

If there ** is ** such a method, it does not rise to the top of Google search results.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-07-31 05:03:20)

tahanson43206 · 2021-07-31 05:15:12

Here is a promising report of synthesis of fuels from water and CO2... It does not yield propane directly, but it does yield a relative that is reported to be useful as a fuel. I'd appreciate someone taking a look at this so see if it might work as a feasible substitute for propane, if it is manufactured in great quantities by nuclear power plants.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 … 151710.htm

Science Newsfrom research organizations
Copper catalyst yields high efficiency CO2-to-fuels conversion
Critical role of nanoparticle transformation discovered
Date:
September 18, 2017
Source:
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Summary:
Scientists have developed a new electrocatalyst that can directly convert carbon dioxide into multicarbon fuels and alcohols using record-low inputs of energy. The work is the latest in a round of studies tackling the challenge of a creating a clean chemical manufacturing system that can put carbon dioxide to good use.

and ...

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a new electrocatalyst that can directly convert carbon dioxide into multicarbon fuels and alcohols using record-low inputs of energy. The work is the latest in a round of studies coming out of Berkeley Lab tackling the challenge of creating a clean chemical manufacturing system that can put carbon dioxide to good use.
In the new study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team led by Berkeley Lab scientist Peidong Yang discovered that an electrocatalyst made up of copper nanoparticles provided the conditions necessary to break down carbon dioxide to form ethylene, ethanol, and propanol.
All those products ...

The article includes a comment that making propanol is too expensive. However, I suspect that the idea of using nuclear power to make propanol was not considered.

I'd like to see an estimate for a nuclear plant to make propanol in quantity.

If the fuel is produced at a cost that is competitive with fossil fuel production of propane, then the way forward would seem worth exploring.

I'd like to see a report on the properties of propanol, as compared to propane.

kbd512 has reminded us that propane can be stored (at moderate pressure) at room temperature indefinitely.

It would be interesting to know how propanol compares to propane.

It might even be a liquid at room temperature?

(th)

louis · 2021-07-31 17:25:52

Your starting point with nuclear power will be something like 10 cents per KwHe. Your starting point for surplus wind or solar will be close to 0 cents because nobody else’s wants to buy it. That’s a huge difference.

tahanson43206 wrote:

For kbd512 re #15
SearchTerm:propane part of detailed overview of hydrocarbon fuels use and history
i'm highlighting this detail from your comprehensive overview because I'm intrigued by the implication in the closing paragraph that a synthesis process to make propane does not already exist.
It seems to be generally accepted that methane can be synthesized, but (I gather) there must be something about the propane molecule that makes synthesis more difficult or perhaps more endothermic, or both.
In any case, the production of propane by nuclear power plants would seem to be a useful activity. In a recent post Calliban suggested production of ammonia from nuclear power plants, and you (and others) have provided support for that idea in the forum. However, I think that if propane can be produced and distributed for prices that are competitive with fossil fuel extraction techniques, we (humans) might have the ticket to use of nuclear power on a more aggressive scale.
If anyone with posting privileges can add to this discussion please do so.
If someone not currently a member would like to contribute to this discussion, please read Post #2 of Recruiting.
***
for kbd512 re Calliban's work in Nuclear is Safe .... do you have any preference for reactor size, in the context of selling the idea to your fellow Texans?
Is there a size that you think would be particularly interesting, so that it would have a chance of approval by the electorate if policy makers propose it for baseload electricity, for production of fuel, or for other purposes?
Edit at 6:50 local time:
Google went looking for information about synthesis of propane ... the top citation was one I was not expecting ...
About 6,440,000 results (0.79 seconds)
To make the propane, the team “hijacked the assembly line” of the biological process of fatty acid synthesis in E coli, introducing a group of enzymes (Thioesterase) into the bacterium. Two more enyzmes were then added to eventually turn the smelly fatty acid into propane.Sep 2, 2014
Propane made with renewable process for the first time | Gas ...https://www.theguardian.com › environment › sep › prop...
About featured snippets
This process seems to require more complex molecules as input. It might be worth expanding, since the supply of fat from animal production and from some plants may be sufficient to justify investment in the capability for delivery of heating gas and for fuel.
However, what I'm looking for is a method that takes water and CO2 as input and yields propane.
Edit at 7:01 local time ... my impression after a preliminary search is that kbd512's hint that there may not currently exist a method to make propane from water and CO2 may turn out to be right.
If there ** is ** such a method, it does not rise to the top of Google search results.
(th)

kbd512 · 2021-07-31 18:01:53

tahanson43206,

Propane has an octane rating of 104 or 105, so it's suitable as a replacement fuel for gasoline engines that require 93 (premium unleaded gasoline), such as Mazda’s Skyactiv series of engines. 100LL (Low-Lead) AVGAS (aviation gasoline) has an AKI rating of 99.6 or thereabouts. However, in terms of energy density about 1.38 gallons of propane is equivalent to 1 gallon of gasoline. 1.38 gallons of propane weighs 5.8512 pounds and 1 gallon of gasoline weighs approximately 6 pounds, so while the fuel is slightly lighter, it requires 38% more volume to provide equivalent energy density when compared with gasoline. Any fuel weight savings will be immediately negated by the weight of a storage container capable of withstanding 250psi (the required pressure rating for commercial propane storage containers). A 100 pound / 23.58 gallon propane tank (built from steel, to the 250psi pressure standard) weighs approximately 70 pounds. A 25 gallon steel automotive gasoline tank only weighs 35 to 40 pounds, so that’s a significant weight increase over existing motor vehicle fuel tank technology. The newer polymer gas tanks are lighter still, but very expensive. A carbon fiber reinforced polymer propane tank with a kevlar overwrap weighs about half of what a steel tank with an equivalent pressure rating weighs. A CFRP / kevlar overwrap tank would most definitely be considerably more expensive than steel and polymer. In modern vehicles, stainless steel lines would be used for either fuel and the current technology material in widespread use is already sufficient to withstand 250psi. Modern engines frequently inject gasoline or diesel at extreme pressures to ensure thorough mixing of the fuel and oxygen for an efficient burn. Propane would more readily atomize and completely mix with the Oxygen in the intake air charge, due to the vapor pressure difference between propane and gasoline or diesel fuels. I think that covers the fuel storage and delivery differences.

Regarding fuel injection and combustion, the injectors would have to be replaced and the fuel injection logic reprogrammed to adjust to create a proper air-fuel mixture for propane. Some of that required software functionality is already built into modern engine control units due to the need to run on multiple grades of fuel, such as GM’s “FlexFuel” vehicles. That said, existing retrofitted gasoline and diesel engines can and do run on propane with relatively minor changes. Commercial lawn mowers frequently run on Propane and a conversion from gasoline can be as simple as a jet and plumbing swap. At least in theory, this significantly higher octane fuel would allow Skyactiv engines to operate under higher loads before reverting back to spark ignition operation. The load limit on Skyactiv engines, prior to reversion to spark ignition, seems to be related to the heat generated through compression ignition before the injected fuel (gasoline) begins to detonate. A higher octane fuel always helps in that department. Skyactiv technology achieves a16.3:1 compression ratio using 93 octane gasoline by first injecting and igniting a tiny droplet of fuel immediately prior to the main charge being injected into the main combustion chamber under extreme pressure. The physics of the flame front propagation and timing are critical to this not producing detonation. By getting the timing of the injection of the main fuel charge “just right”, the engine will “diesel”, meaning it will ignite the gasoline through compression ignition at the exact correct moment, without requiring the use of a spark to ignite the air-fuel mixture. Someone familiar with engines would immediately recognize why this doesn’t work very well under load. As the rpm of the engine increases, there’s insufficient time for the flame front to spread out and ignite the primary charge. To compound the problem, a hot spark plug tip or hot carbon deposits on the piston’s face could pre-ignite / detonate the mixture if the timing is even slightly off. That means you have to pull heat out of the piston using oil squirters, have a near-perfect seal with your ring pack, run lean (which increases the heat generated from combustion as you approach the stoichiometric ratio), and you need a thoroughly mixed charge. Again, higher octane fuel is the answer.

E85 (spec race fuel, not the crap they sell at the pump with alcohol content and therefore octane ratings all over the map) or pure Ethanol have even higher octane ratings than propane- somewhere near 112, IIRC, but these fuels are even less energy dense per unit weight when compared to propane and occupy the same volume as propane. For example, 1.32 gallon of E85 equals 1 gallon of gasoline in terms of energy density, and it weighs 8.6196 pounds to provide the same energy as 1 gallon of gasoline, so it’s significantly heavier than diesel fuel for equivalent energy to gasoline. In terms of GGE “gallon of gasoline equivalency”, E85 is heavier than fuel oil, and even heavier than Bunker Fuel C (a very dirty fuel used by large ships when they’re out to sea), which only weighs 8.3 pounds per gallon. Ethanol’s significant weight penalty may be acceptable for motorsports such as drag racing or offshore power boats, but not for passenger vehicles, heavy duty trucks, or light aircraft.

Anyway, yes, I like propane because it burns almost as clean as methane, it has a high octane rating that allows engine designers to use higher compression ratios for improved thermal efficiency, it can be put into advanced fiber-reinforced tanks that weigh about the same as the steel tanks they’d replace, and in terms of gravimetric energy density, propane is a very close match with gasoline.

kbd512 · 2021-07-31 18:35:09

Louis,

louis wrote:

Your starting point with nuclear power will be something like 10 cents per KwHe. Your starting point for surplus wind or solar will be close to 0 cents because nobody else’s wants to buy it. That’s a huge difference.

We’ve been over your argument before. Your math doesn’t work out. It never will, either, because simple energy physics will never be negated using any form of existing wind and solar energy technology. That’s why all of the wind and solar in the world, combined, still doesn’t equal the output of the handful of nuclear reactors in operation. This is basic math (addition and multiplication) and economics problem. Nobody on this planet can turn the Sun and wind on or off, at-will. That’s why the Germans spent 10 times more than they otherwise would have if they’d simply purchased some nuclear reactors from the French and called it a day. That’s why Germany’s CO2 emissions today are exactly what they were before they started this “renewable energy” nonsense. It was always a pipe dream initiated by religious zealots with lots of dogma and no ability to count, let alone do more complex calculations.

From US EIA:

The average energy capacity cost of utility-scale battery storage in the United States has rapidly decreased from $2,152 per kilowatthour (kWh) in 2015 to $625/kWh in 2018.

Well, gee whiz, battery storage only needs to decrease by another $624.90 to be on par with generation from reliable nuclear power (and then it's still more expensive since something has to charge that battery). That means Lithium-ion batteries, per unit weight, literally need to become cheaper than dirt. That will never happen in our lifetimes, and if you don't know that by now, then you never will. Power generation beats power storage every day of the week, in terms of energy consumed versus energy produced, basic economics, and all other metrics that actually matter for producing a viable energy supply that is both reliable and durable. 25 years from now, someone (your children) will have to foot the bill to replace a substantial portion of the existing wind turbines and solar panels. You’re simply “hoping” that they’ll be cheaper or we’ll all be a lot richer 25 years from now. Electricity is currently 3 TIMES more expensive in Germany than it is in the US, specifically because THE SUN DOESN’T SHINE IN GERMANY! There's no magic wand we can waive to make the Sun appear whenever and wherever we want it to.

None of what you’re proposing is aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. It’s just throwing money at any random idea that feeds into your pet technology and the ideology backing it. Worse still, it’s not actually solving the problem that our climate change religious fanatics claim they want to solve, which means we still have to deal with the undesirable societal effects associated with the insufferable idiocy of their religion (humans bad, space rock good).

tahanson43206 · 2021-07-31 18:40:46

For kbd512 re #19

SearchTerm:propane comparison with other fuels and suitability for use in internal combustion engines

The current discussion started with your observation (as I understood it) there there might not (yet) be a way to synthesize propane.

In searching (with the help of Google) I found research using copper as a catalyst that yields (among other things) a material called propanol.

In your answer above, it appears you did not get around to considering propanol.

I asked Google for more help, and it came up with this:

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compou … ction=LogP

The article/web page at the link above has a great deal of information about the compound, but (if it's there I didn't find it) not much on suitability for use as a fuel. However, the original article about the research indicated that propanol may be suitable as a fuel.

What I discovered in reviewing the chemical properties of propanol is that it appears to be liquid at standard temperature and pressure.

If that is the case, then it would appear to be superior to propane in that it would appear to be storable in the same tanks as gasoline.

Since the original concept I was working from is Calliban's vision of small modular nuclear reactors that could be mass produced to replace fossil fuels, I am hoping that (if you get time) you might be able to analyze the suitability of propanol for use as a transportation fuel.

My impression is that while fuel is moderately obnoxious when encountered by humans in vapor form, it is not fatal, as would be the case with ammonia, which is also under consideration as an energy carrier for mass use on Earth.

I realize this is an imposition after all the work you put into a review of propane, but hope you will be willing to look at propanol.

I am looking for a formula that can be sold to funders.

Nuclear power is going to be challenging enough.

Trying to sell ammonia is going to be challenging on top of nuclear power.

A fuel that can be synthesized by a nuclear power plant, stored without special arrangements, transported by ship, train, truck or pipeline, and which delivers accepting heating capability for a wide variety of customers would help to round out a proposal.

Hydrogen is certainly an attractive way to go, especially since oxygen is a valuable byproduct that can be delivered to customers around the world for manufacturing and medical use, and as time goes on, increasingly for space launches.

However, Hydrogen seems (to me at least) unlikely to find favor for home heating, kitchen uses, or generic transportation.

Thanks again for your detailed review of propane.

I'll keep looking for a way to synthesize that molecule.

If there is a member with posting privileges who would like to move this topic along, please pitch in.

If there is a reader who is not a member and would like to help, please read Post #2 of Recruiting.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2021-07-31 19:07:54

For kbd512 re propanol ...

Google kept sending me to a medicine with a similar name ...

I became mildly irritated and specified ** do not include medicine ** in my request ...

Lo and behold! Google complied with the request and delivered a useful citation:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/en … g/propanol

Biological Production of Alcohols
Sean Michael Scully, Johann Orlygsson, in Advanced Bioprocessing for Alternative Fuels, Biobased Chemicals, and Bioproducts, 2019
5.3.1 n-Propanol and Isopropanol
Propanol has two isomers: 1-propanol (n-propanol, n-PA) and 2-propanol (i-propanol, i-PA). Both compounds are widely used as solvents and as intermediates in the production of various esters and amides. Isopropanol is also used as a disinfectant in pharmaceutical products or as an antifreeze. Currently, the main application of propanol today is for the synthesis of propylene which is an important building block in chemical industries [52]. Propanol as a biofuel has not gained much attention, mainly because of its production cost as compared to gasoline and its energy density is not much higher than that of ethanol and is much lower compared to butanol. Probably the most suitable way to use propanol as fuel would be in alcohol mixtures such as in isopropanol–butanol–ethanol fermentation. Formation of i-PA from branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) will be discussed in Section 5.4.

The reason I keep belaboring this point is that the citation of a catalyst solution to synthesis of propanol offers the potential to reduce the cost of synthesis if the source of energy is nuclear power, and the global goal is to eliminate fossil fuels.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-07-31 19:08:55)

SpaceNut · 2021-07-31 19:23:17

The only thing that makes it any better is the capture reuse of co2 from the atmosphere of which we could be doing the same for fossil fuel burning but the designers of the equipment chose not to.

https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/green … er-vehicle

A typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. This assumes the average gasoline vehicle on the road today has a fuel economy of about 22.0 miles per gallon and drives around 11,500 miles per year.
Every gallon of gasoline burned creates about 8,887 grams of CO2.

or 8.887 kilograms

1 US gallon of gasoline weighs 2.84 kilograms.

https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissio … l_mass.php
Carbon Dioxide Emissions Coefficients by Fuel

average only way trip depending on fuel mileage might use as little as a gallon or 5 for the day.

so collecting and pressurizing the co2 would need a decent size tank and compressor
Vehicles already have smog pumps so cooling it some before compressing to final levels is all that is needed.

tahanson43206 · 2021-07-31 19:48:36

For SpaceNut re interesting post #23

Your post inspired me to ask FluxBB if the word propanol had come up in the forum before ...

I was surprised to find it had!

Search results
Topic Forum Replies Last post
14,000 World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021[ by EdwardHeisler
Not So Free Chat 22 Today 19:23:17 by SpaceNut
Sticky: Mars Insitu Fuels made from atmosphere, regolith, water by SpaceNut
Human missions 19 2020-12-16 10:18:17 by SpaceNut
Pages:1
Index» Search» Topics with posts containing 'propanol'

I'll have to go look to see how it came up in the Mars Insitu Fuels discussion!

In the mean time, thanks for reinforcing the point that we need to pull CO2 from the air to make fuel using nuclear power, to eliminate dependence on fossil fuels.

Obviously, fuel made using nuclear power and NOT pulled from the ground is NOT fossil fuel.

As I understand the citation of research given a few posts back in the current discussion, the scientists/engineers involved were pulling CO2 from the atmosphere along with Hydrogen from water to make propanol using a copper catalyst.

I am hoping kbd512 can find the time to look at propanol.

For kbd512 ... The losses you've reported in your family weigh heavily. I sure hope everyone else in the extended family is acting to protect those who remain!

(th)

SpaceNut · 2021-07-31 20:16:59

The combination of c, h with pressure and temperature with the catalyst in a chamber is what makes all the variation in the output which we are trying to get from the reaction in the controlling chamber. Each of these is called a different name for the output we are desiring. The temperature is via heating elements from electrical sources for the most part with the temperature playing an important role in the results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/25/12212

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#24 2021-07-31 19:48:36

Re: 14,000 World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021[

#25 2021-07-31 20:16:59

Re: 14,000 World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021[

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