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#1 2021-07-27 11:57:26

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Climate Change - History and Forecasts

For SpaceNut .... there are numerous topics that contain the word "climate".

However, all I found seem to be focused on a particular aspect of the subject.

This new topic is offered for those who may wish to contribute to an accumulation of knowledge about the subject.

I am not looking for opinion in this topic.  We have a great number of topics where opinion is welcome and encouraged.

The opening post here is from an article by a historian who studied the Little Ice Age.  The purpose of the study was:

1) to see what happened (with focus on local variation around the planet)

2) to see how humans coped (many did NOT survive)

The author appears to be publishing in hopes citizens living today might be able to glean some insight from the past.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/small-climat … 45154.html

Nations and communities might learn from some of the success stories of the Little Ice Age: Populations that prospered were often those that provided for their poor, established diverse trade networks, migrated from vulnerable environments, and above all adapted proactively to new environmental realities.

People who lived through the Little Ice Age lacked perhaps the most important resource available today: the ability to learn from the long global history of human responses to climate change.

[Get our best science and technology stories. Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Dagomar Degroot, Georgetown University.

There's another difference between the Little Ice Age and now ... at the time, it was impossible for humans to comprehend the big picture (ie, the global system taken as an interrelated whole).

***
Reminder ... for those who would want to post an opinion please chose another topic about climate.  This is not the place for it.

Edit 2021/11/17 ... The article at the link below is about the history of the legal/treaty agreements made regarding the Colorado River:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/climate-chan … 47683.html

It appears that the 1922 agreement in particular was deeply flawed. The author recommends a renegotiation based upon percentage of actual water.

(th)

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#2 2021-07-27 15:03:56

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

People used to respond to climate and/or ecosystem change by relocating. Humans and hominids went north or south as the ice moved. People were able to move into the Americas from the north because of retreating glaciers allowing people to move through what is now Alaska.

Now people are more reluctant and in many cases (as far as international borders go) less able to move.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#3 2021-07-27 15:37:52

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

You can migrate unless you have built fixed assets like cities.  Even moving farms is nontrivial.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#4 2021-07-27 19:24:43

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Climate change = global warming by another definition

If you bought and invest in property along the sea coast there is a good chance that its now or will be soon under water... Its that investment with no return for your life time of payments that is the loss that one can not afford. Lots of folks that invest in such items are looking to sell in the golden years in order to be financially set by the rise in value.

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#5 2021-07-28 15:55:13

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

SpaceNut and GW,

Given everything that real estate investors, bankers, politicians, and the general public knows or ought to know about living near large bodies of water that are subjected to repeated flooding events, with or without global warming, why are governments and banks still handing out money like candy to build there?

The messaging as it pertains to investing and new construction is not congruent at all.  We're proving through actions that we don't actually believe in what we claim to believe in, or we're utterly ignoring the consequences of poor decision making.

I think the sea will rise and flood this area, so I'm going to buy a multi-million dollar vacation home there, that the rest of the tax payers underwrite the flood insurance policy for.  That seems like non-existent planning for the future to me.

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#6 2021-07-28 18:44:56

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

I would agree on a case by case and there are buts...such as when we had the may day floods in back to back years where the hillside trench for water along the roadway over flowed and came down the hill into my home.. Now I am 400 to 600 feet above sea level but I still had flood condition occur...continue down the hill that I set on the slope and you end up with a flood plain that is probably at 300 ft due to springs and road run off. other wise its usually under natural control and no problems occur.
I guess the real quest for those that flood now is what level were they when those that bought in risk areas?

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#7 2021-08-01 04:35:36

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Chinese coal consumption continues to grow.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/China- … Green.html

The Chinese are producing more coal than the entire rest of the world, from reserves that are half the size of those in the US.  And their consumption continues to grow, with coal prices soaring to unprecedented levels.  It looks more and more like desperation.  I wonder how long they can keep this up?

Whilst many people expect the Chinese to rule the world, they look to me to be approaching a peak in their power.  Their economy is increasingly pushing against resource limitations that will be very difficult to circumvent.  The next few decades will be interesting times.


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#8 2021-08-04 15:52:47

RobertDyck
Moderator
From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,781
Website

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

I saw on Facebook a couple people claimed the New Shepard launch by Blue Origin emitted pollution that contributes to climate change. I responded to one of them, telling him they use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, exhaust is steam. That individual countered that water can cause global warming too. I said the water will come down as rain. He didn't believe that. Well, here's a video that high lights a BBC report on test firing the RS-25 engine at Stennis in preparation for SLS.

YouTube: Can We Make It Rain? WATCH THIS WHOLE VIDEO & FIND OUT!
71189035_429594224382410_2398058413780107264_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=ad6a45&_nc_ohc=9wOIA3JGcYIAX812Ivc&_nc_ht=scontent.fyyc2-1.fna&oh=c17ae58ce7dc1890fe273e45b088e49f&oe=61104688

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#9 2021-08-04 17:51:58

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

FFS! Comparing the Little Ice Age - when steam power had hardly been invented - with now, when we have so many technologies at our disposal. It doesn't even begin to make sense.  One observation I would make is that the Little Ice Age did not impede in any way Europe's cultural, economic and social development.


tahanson43206 wrote:

For SpaceNut .... there are numerous topics that contain the word "climate".

However, all I found seem to be focused on a particular aspect of the subject.

This new topic is offered for those who may wish to contribute to an accumulation of knowledge about the subject.

I am not looking for opinion in this topic.  We have a great number of topics where opinion is welcome and encouraged.

The opening post here is from an article by a historian who studied the Little Ice Age.  The purpose of the study was:

1) to see what happened (with focus on local variation around the planet)

2) to see how humans coped (many did NOT survive)

The author appears to be publishing in hopes citizens living today might be able to glean some insight from the past.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/small-climat … 45154.html

Nations and communities might learn from some of the success stories of the Little Ice Age: Populations that prospered were often those that provided for their poor, established diverse trade networks, migrated from vulnerable environments, and above all adapted proactively to new environmental realities.

People who lived through the Little Ice Age lacked perhaps the most important resource available today: the ability to learn from the long global history of human responses to climate change.

[Get our best science and technology stories. Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Dagomar Degroot, Georgetown University.

There's another difference between the Little Ice Age and now ... at the time, it was impossible for humans to comprehend the big picture (ie, the global system taken as an interrelated whole).

***
Reminder ... for those who would want to post an opinion please chose another topic about climate.  This is not the place for it.

(th)


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#10 2021-08-09 19:35:57

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

This going to be fun if it happens.  I have a SciFi movie about it that I tend to laugh about.  Maybe not so much now.  Maybe it is time to become a snow bird.

https://www.space.com/gulf-stream-close-to-collapse

Quote:

Gulf Stream could be veering toward irreversible collapse, a new analysis warns

Kind of like the Earth maybe trying to get rid of an infectious organism smile

Done


Done.

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#11 2021-08-09 19:50:51

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

To stop such a flow means the heat from the equator can no longer be cooled by the cold of the pole at the current flow rate of the gulf stream as it advances along its corridor. Since the polar area is getting warmer it impedes the rising heat slowing it as it try's to turn the corner to head back south. This is what is know as thermosyphon..

https://basc.pnnl.gov/resource-guides/s … ermosiphon
https://www.freeenergyplanet.biz/solar- … -work.html

This is what we want to happen
atlantic_currents.jpg

here is what is happening

atlantic-gulf-stream.jpg

The portion that needs to go by Europe needs to be much greater and with the pressure pushing it to the areas around green land we are warming the pole...

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#12 2021-10-28 11:42:07

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

https://www.yahoo.com/news/explainer-hi … 17753.html

The article at the link above seems (to me at least) to offer a reasonably complete picturer of the scene today.

Timothy Gardner
Thu, October 28, 2021, 7:04 AM
By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - From replicating the process that fuels the sun to harnessing scorching temperatures deep below our feet, scientists, companies and venture capitalists are betting on high-tech ways to power the planet without emitting greenhouse gases.

Such "moon-shot" technologies are likely to be a topic of conversation when delegates meet at U.N. climate talks https://www.reuters.com/business/enviro … 2021-10-18 in Scotland starting on Sunday, to figure out how to speed the transition off fossil fuels.

While traditional clean energy sources like solar and wind power are expected to play a leading role in helping countries reach near-term climate goals, higher-tech solutions may be needed to achieve longer-term targets.

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is planning a $5 billion plant at its futuristic city NEOM to produce clean hydrogen.

GEOTHERMAL POWER PLANTS

Geothermal power plants tap heat up to 700 degrees Fahrenheit (370 C) far below the earth's surface to create steam and turn turbines that generate electricity.

Countries such as the United States, Indonesia, the Philippines and Kenya are leading geothermal electricity generation. But the technology needs to ramp up greatly to play a significant role in providing an alternative to fossil fuels.

The United States has the capacity to generate 10% of the country's current power demand through geothermal, up from 0.4% https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/geo … y.phptoday as high upfront costs hold back investments. Countries with few fossil fuel resources, including Japan and Singapore, aim to develop geothermal power.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington; Additional reporting by Nikolaj Skysgaard in Copenhagen; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

(th)

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#13 2021-10-28 14:31:12

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

We seem to be living in an age of hysteria.

As a corrective may I suggest climate hysterics read this about the coldest winter on record in the Antarctic at the South Pole. It occurred in...oh wait a minute, it occurred this year:

https://spectator.org/a-freezing-antarc … s-records/

Does this mean the AGW theory is completely wrong? No. Not necessarily. Should it give us pause for thought? Yes.

Other clues are that the hurricane season in the Caribbean was worse in the decades of the 1940s and 1960s compared with recent decades. Also, I have not seen one credible record of an island going under the waves because of rising sea levels (not sinking land, natural shifts in estuarine silt deposits and currents, leaky limestone, and collapsing coral).


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#14 2021-10-28 17:26:39

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,747

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Yellow stone national park is the major hot spot for tapping into natural energy for the US but would it come with a cost that we could ill afford....

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#15 2022-05-02 06:56:06

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Surface temperature tops 60°C in parts of north India, satellite images show

140 F

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne … .html?s=09

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#16 2022-05-03 03:41:42

Mars_B4_Moon
Member
Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 8,892

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

‘We are living in hell’: Pakistan and India suffer extreme spring heatwaves
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ … -shortages
Wildfires cause extensive agricultural losses in Nebraska
https://omaha.com/news/state-and-region … 22a8f.html
Wheat yield for 2022 in France already expected to be bad due to drought and lack of rain. France is a major wheat producer and exporter ranked 4th on top of Ukraine
https://nitter.net/SergeZaka/status/1520076939830124547
Goya CEO warns world on the brink of a food crisis
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/goy … ood-crisis
New government maps show nearly all of the West is in drought and it's not even summer yet: "This is unprecedented"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/west-climate-change-water/
Trends in Europe storm surge extremes match the rate of sea-level rise
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04426-5
New Mexico megafire could more than double in size, official says
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-me … 022-05-01/

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-05-03 03:44:10)

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#17 2022-07-19 10:37:16

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

With sympathy for our NewMars members who live in the UK ...

Niamh Cavanagh·Producer
July 19, 2022, 10:26 AM·5 min read

LONDON — The U.K. broke its record for the hottest day ever on Tuesday as a heat wave continues to scorch Europe.

The heat wave that settled over southern Europe last week moved north, bringing with it boiling temperatures that are breaking records and causing a national emergency in the U.K.


A movie theater marquee in London suggests an escape from extreme temps as the U.K. hit its hottest day on record on Tuesday. (Dominic Lipinski/PA Images via Getty Images)

According to provisional figures, temperatures of 40.2°C (104.4°F) were documented at Heathrow, Britain’s busiest airport, in the south of England, surpassing the previous record of 38.7°C (101.7°F) in 2019.

Putting the boiling temperatures into a “global perspective,” meteorologist Ben Noll said the highest forecast temperature in Britain, predicted to be 41°C (106°F), “would be hotter than 98.8% of Earth.”

A sign in London on Tuesday. (Sebastian Gollnow/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)

“The hottest UK temperatures on Tuesday are expected to be about 30°C warmer than the global average maximum temperature,” the meteorologist wrote. “In other words, it’s very anomalous on a global scale.”

Ahead of Tuesday’s heat wave, the Health Security Agency issued for the first time a Level 4 alert, its highest-level heat warning, and Britain’s Met Office issued its first red warning for severe weather, indicating a “national emergency.” The sweltering heat threatens to buckle railway lines and deplete reservoirs.

A map shows temperatures 2 meters above the surface. (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts)

There were disruptions to flights at two airports on Monday after the heat caused “surface defects” on Luton Airport’s runway and caused the tarmac at the Royal Air Force’s station in Brize Norton to melt.

If London reaches its forecast temperature of 41°C (106°F), it will be among the hottest places in Europe — warmer than cities closer to the equator.

On Monday, the record for nighttime temperature was broken after 25.8°C (78.4°F) was documented, beating the previous record of 23.9°C (75°F), and the record for the highest daily minimum temperature was also broken, with some areas not falling below 25°C (77°F).

The BBC has a daily video broadcast in the US, and yesterday's episode included video of the buckling flight line at a major airport.

I'm assuming the engineers who laid down that runway and the supporting surfaces would have taken temperature ranges into account, but clearly the extremes happening now were NOT anticipated.

Again, my sympathies to everyone in the UK who is inconvenienced by the current conditions.

(th)

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#18 2022-07-20 06:57:03

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,746

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

This article showed up in today's news feed ...

The article appears to be about a CO2 capture facility powered by geothermal energy.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/not-solve-cl … 50756.html

How not to solve the climate change problem
Kevin Trenberth, Distinguished Scholar, NCAR; Affiliated Faculty, University of Auckland
July 20, 2022, 12:08 AM·7 min read

Having read the article, I note that while it seems to cover the topic reasonably well, it is missing figures where 0 (zero) has been entered as filler, and as a commenter points out, nuclear power was omitted altogether.

In short, the article is reasonably useful as a way of understanding the problem, but woefully deficient at finding a solution.

(th)

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#19 2022-07-20 10:42:06

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

tahanson43206,

That article is the same trite and tiresome crapola, devoid of any math or mere mention of resource limitations.  Wind and solar and electric cars solve everything, as always.  All well and good, except for anyone who can do basic math who also knows what a farce that is.  No other solutions are even possible.  These clowns exist to defecate their brain dead ideology into the soft heads of their ignorant readers.  At the end of the day, if you talk to them, you'll find out that they universally hate humanity because they're married to their death cult.

"I've been studying the problem for four decades..." - Well, genius, all your "studying" costs a lot of public money, doesn't lead to any "solutions" that actually work, and if the problem is as bad as you say, then it only gets worse while you dither and whine about the fact that your "Solar Jesus" hasn't turned your brain vomit into "more whine".  The actual problem is that none of these Derpistanis have ever produced workable solutions or policy prescriptions for doing much more than spending more and more public money on their religion.  The same people who are "studying climate change" will never be the ones I look to for practical and effective solutions, because they've clearly never learned anything about engineering.  All their education fails them at that point.

This is what I mean when I say that these people have been "educated into stupidity".  They're like my previous neighbor who has a neurosurgery degree but can't figure out how to "fix" a water sprinkler head with a spring and one moving part.  Does that make him dumb?  No, but the world involves more than cutting open the heads of children to remove tumors.  When you can't use a scalpel to solve your problem, then what?  He's spectacular at that, but should never attempt to do anything else, because he doesn't know anything else and it's painfully obvious.

"Wind and solar cost less than fossil fuel under some idealized scenario that totally ignores reality" - Yeah, okay, so why does every wind and solar farm require a complete fossil fuel backup plant?  Is it because it fundamentally doesn't work the way you want it to?  Nah, couldn't be that.  We can't admit to reality here.  We have a religious ideology to perpetuate.  We can't let physics get in the way of our ideology.  We should instead twist ourselves in knots trying to "wordsmith" reality to contort it into our "green dream", to the point that some of you are now calling the burning of wood / trash / natural gas "green energy".

We "just" need a wind turbine farm, a solar farm, a geothermal plant, a hydro plant, electric cars, a completely new electric grid, and oh yeah, that "evil" gas turbine to make it falsely appear as if wind and solar the cheapest power around when in reality we're never going to shut off the gas burner.  Naturally, none of that consumed any energy or capital or labor or wasted any time that could've been devoted to something approaching a practical solution.  This is what happens when Derpistanis are allowed to run amok.  They have their ideas, reality tells them that their ideas are garbage, and they totally ignore every part of reality that doesn't agree with their ideology, no different than any other religion.

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#20 2022-07-20 12:07:57

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

If we all run around like the monks from the Monty Python skit, who were incessantly slamming their heads into their ideology (the Bible), does "greater magic" happen to solve the problem, or do all of us end up becoming traumatic brain injury patients?

The mere fact that you're a carpenter who only has a hammer hanging from your tool belt does not make your hammer an appropriate tool for cutting wood.  When the tool in your hand doesn't cut wood worth a darn, then you pick up another tool.  Humanity also invented saws and axes for that reason.

Energy density, raw material scarcity, and total project cost are all real engineering concepts, apparently never taught to anyone who attends climate change school.  Why is that?

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#21 2022-07-21 03:00:41

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Congressman Dan Crenshaw speaks to Steve Koonin about climate science.  Both interesting men.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxm4IAht1vQ

I can summarise Steve's position, I think, as follows: Human beings are burning a lot of fossil fuel for energy, which is the underpinning of all human prosperity.  This emits CO2, which is a greenhouse gas.  We think this is having a warming effect, because it absorbs IR radiation emitted by the crust.  It is amplified and dampened simultaneously by a huge number of factors that we have no near term hope of adequately modelling due to the complexity of the Earth's climate system.  So we don't really know how the Earth's climate is going to change over the next century.  So far the models have done a poor job at predicting the present based upon conditions of the past.

Crenshaw makes the point that policy must be based on a balance of factors.  Human induced climate change may impose risks to some population sets in the future, but interfering with energy production is clearly a risk to the economy, upon which human life and well being depends.  I think Dan Crenshaw, as a conservative, has a clarity of mind that the progressives lack.  He isn't about idealism or finding perfect solutions.  He instead looks for the solution that is the best compromise across the board.  This is how safety management always works.  We end up taking certain risks in exchange for benefits.  This way of thinking allows us to reach the best solution overall.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-07-21 03:02:49)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#22 2022-07-21 07:53:18

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,975

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

I stumbled on this today.
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-overconfi … views.html
Quote:

Overconfidence bolsters anti-scientific views, study finds
by Katy Swordfisk, Portland State University

So, the politics of the problem where there may be masses that are ignorant, and given doom porn, gets in the way of taking the correct paths to solutions, I guess.  (Peter Zeihan used the phrase "Doom Porn" today so a stole it).

Religious reaction to the words Carbon or Nuclear. 

I am guessing that some will not accept even the idea of capturing Carbon out of the environment and making it into fuels.  I think the reaction is almost like a religious one about incest.  There are good reasons not to favor incest, that is well known, but for Carbon and Nuclear changing technology may offer a sensible argument to not have a religious reaction to Carbon or Nuclear.

I liked your following post GW Johnson, but I don't want to post over it as I would rather see another member do that.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2022-07-21 09:34:38)


Done.

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#23 2022-07-21 08:47:30

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

Over the course of my life (I am 72 years old),  I have watched atmospheric CO2 climb from 300 ppm to over 400 ppm.  I have watched the Arctic sea ice decline enough to open the Northwest Passage on the Siberian side.  The mountain glaciers have been disappearing.  I have seen the frequency of heat waves and droughts increase significantly.  I now see the beginnings of Greenland actually deglaciating,  and some significant instabilities beginning in the Antarctic. 

I have watched the scientific consensus shift from "we're heading into another ice age" based on Milankovitch cycles,  to "we are artificially warming the climate" based on some known physics,  and a bit too much reliance on fancy computer predictions for most people's taste. 

The upshot of all that is this:  the warming thing is quite real,  whether we are causing it or not.  We are,  at least partly,  but believing that is not at all necessary to recognizing that we have to do something to head this off,  if we can.  The sea level rise associated with the Greenland and Antarctic deglaciations is simply too catastrophic to ignore.

The question is,  what do we do?  From a practical standpoint,  a bit of everything,  to reduce our CO2 and methane emissions. 

Shifting from coal to natural gas for electricity generation makes quite a difference,  despite it still being a fossil fuel.  That is because of gravimetric heating value:  a pound of natural gas makes a bit over factor 1.5 more MW of electricity than a pound of coal.  Or base it on kilograms,  I don't care,  it's the same factor 1.5 better.  Plus,  you get a whopping lot less air pollution from natural gas plants.  And there are no ash pits and ponds to deal with,  nor are there strip mines to clean up.

Nuclear is a much better deal,  too,  as long as you avoid obsolete and dangerous designs like Chernobyl,  or designs inadequate to handle natural threats like Fukushima,  or mismanagement problems like 3 Mile Island.  It's potentially dangerous stuff,  so you have to prioritize safety above profit,  and just pay the costs to get it right.  Do that,  and it is quite safe.  And quite clean and reliable. 

But your plant designs have to be proof against the earthquakes in the geological record,  not the historical record.  And they need to be sited high enough to avoid tsunamis from the geological record,  not the historical record.  All the plants we already have fail that. It is precisely the mistake that let Fukushima happen.  And it was done to lower cost.  No other excuse.

Myself,  I'd recommend fuel reprocessing to cut down on the size of the waste stream.  And I'd open up Yucca Mountain and use it for the waste storage it was built for.  It's on the old nuclear test range.  Why not use it?

The base load ought to be nuclear and natural gas,  with solar and wind comprising no more than about 20% of the mix.  We already know that works.  If fusion ever really happens,  replace the natural gas with that.

As for timing,  we are already past the tipping point for serious environmental damage from climate warming.  I say that because of the things I have seen happen since the early 1950's.  The only way to head off catastrophic damage is to build a lot of (properly-designed) nuke plants "now",  replace coal with natural gas "now",  and see if the reversible notions like carbon capture and sequestration can really be made to work.  If one doesn't work,  try another one.  Or try them all,  and keep doing only those that really work.

You don't want to do "climate engineering" things like particulates in the atmosphere,  because if it doesn't work right,  there is no way to un-do it.  You only do the things that you can un-do,  if they don't pan out!   

It's just common sense.  Something I have seen way too little of,  for several decades now.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2022-07-21 08:53:51)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#24 2022-07-21 10:57:04

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

I am all for nuclear power.  The risk to human life from nuclear power reactor accidents is consistently shown to be miniscule.  The reasons being: (1) In a well designed reactor, fuel damage is unlikely, I mean once in 100,000 years or more unlikely; (2) If it does happen, reactors have containment systems that catch most of the fission products that leak out of the fuel before it enters the environment; (3) Even a major radioactive release isn't the end of the world.

Following a large release, you have contaminated land that you have to deal with and people in the surrounding area face an extra disease vector due to elevated background radiation.  But even in the heavily contaminated areas around Fukushima, the effect would be no worse than the public health consequences of air pollution in cities.  Most of the areas evacuated around Chernobyl and Fukushima didn't really need to be from a human health standpoint.  So you have a 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 100 million chance that a reactor might release the health equivelent of 1 year of fossil air pollution from a major city.  Boo hoo.

When the risk is understood for what it is, the decision of some greens to phase out nuclear power and burn more coal looks bat guano crazy.  They are burdening the population with a constant toxic pollution hazard, to avoid at most a one in 10,000 chance of a toxic pollution hazard from a different vector.  They do this because for some reason, a 1 in 100 chance of dying from air pollution is less scary to them than a 1 in a billion chance of dying due to a reactor accident.  You cannot debate with those people because they aren't rational.  The truth is that 100 Chernobyl reactors, providing all of Germany's electricity, would be far less dangerous to the average German than the energy policy that they actually have.

Regarding geoengineering: One option would be to inject sulphate ions into the troposphere.  These form aerosols that increase the reflectivity of clouds.  This can be done by burning high sulphur fuels in power stations and venting the flue gas up into a high stack.  Part of warming trend we are seeing is the result of flue gas desulphurisation applied to coal burning plants.  Could we build a powerplant the burns pure sulphur, say, at a high elevation site and have a kilometre high flue stack?  Some bitumous coals are 4% sulphur by weight.  Some oils are 10% sulphur by weight.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/clas … d_164.html

To burn these without creating an air pollution problem would require very high flue stacks.  But it is exactly what is needed to counteract global heating.  The question is, how high would the stack need to be?

Last edited by Calliban (2022-07-21 11:24:09)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#25 2022-07-21 11:30:42

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,361

Re: Climate Change - History and Forecasts

GW,

Here's what I understand about climate change:

1. No new energy source has ever been more than additive to all the existing energy sources that humanity uses.  We still burn dung, wood, and coal.  Now we burn natural gas and petroleum products as well.  Nuclear came along and now we "burn" Uranium.  Solar and wind came along and added a bit more.  Nothing has actually been "replaced", it's all been additive.  Period.  There is no other story.  Exact mixes have changed over time, but energy usage has only increased over time.

2. All the proposed "solutions" are glaring failures when scaled up to the level of an industrialized country like Germany.  The climate change logic is never extended past any given vehicle or power plant or country, never mind human civilization.  Remember when Ethanol was touted as being better than gasoline?  A decade later, we "discover" that the opposite is true.  It appears to me that we're actually increasing fossil fuel consumption at an alarming rate because we're running wild with non-solutions in addition to all existing energy sources.  Every non-solution requires more energy and labor and therefore money to create.

3. Everything that could work better than what we're doing now is not being done at any significant scale or outright ignored as a potential solution.  Nuclear works best, but we're not doing it in a serious way, and we're not going to, either, because climate change religion demands wind / solar / batteries and nothing else.  Everyone here can do basic math.  Everyone here is ignoring what's going on and just "doing what they do".  Meanwhile, nothing actually changes for the better.

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