Climate Change Discussion

[IH3444]

Yea, we need to "git on back" to the global warming discussion. I was reading the newspaper and it was stateing mostly all the European countries that signed the Koyoto treaty capping limits on greenhouse gas emmissions have been violating the treaty by up to double the limit amounts they said that they were going to adhere to. .......And that they were far "outgassing" the Good Ole United States. ......We need an Al Gore speech to prove to them that we can "outgass" with the best the world has to offer. Where's Al's hot air when you really need it? Another thing I noticed that extra 40 pounds Al packed on after losing the presidency, and I calculated that Al had an additional 120,000 calories he was sporting around the town with. Made me wonder with all the heavy and obese people we are being told about, if a profitable making enterprise could be created with all that liposuctioned blubber. Can it be boiled down to a "whale oil". After distilling and cracking, maybe we could run our tractors on it. Would that be recycling and envoirmentally friendly

 

[IH3444]

Alan, the Dutch did just what you say after the huge storm that breeched their leeves in the 50's. Two big double header storms merged and put more than 130 towns under water. They got organized, and went about rescueing their own country. Now they are the world's experts on leeve engineering. The Dutch engineer and build their leeves for the 10,000 year storm surge. We engineer and build ours for the 100 year storm. The Dutch plan for a double wammy storm. We plan for a single biggie. Two different schools of thought.

 

[thingy]

You got different kinds of people as you all know,,you gots the kind that wouldn't ask for their help even if their left foot was disolveing right in front of them,,than you got people who would purposely stay in a hurricane so they could get some government money from the man.
They oughta build a dome over the **** place like they did at cernoble in russia. thingy

 

[Doc_Bob]

0.7 degree rise in 100 years?

Think of all the progress in one hundred years?
Is a 0.7 degree rise in the temperature of the world worth all the progress of the last 100 years?

If we could have the same progress in the next 100 years for another 0.7 degree I would love it!

Would you?
Bob

 

[Chuck52]

I attended a seminar Friday in which a small part, almost a simple comment, concerned the possible application of the project to use as a storage form for hydrogen. One (just one) of the problems with the so-called "hydrogen economy", is the storage of hydrogen in a form which is readily available for use in energy cells or the like. The speaker wasn't hyping his particular storage molecule because he didn't see it as the real answer for high volume hydrogen storage, as would be necessary for use in energy cells powerful enough for use in automobiles, or the like. He does think it might be useful for small applications, perhaps to function like the solar-powered road signs in places where solar power might need to be supplemented. It got me thinking about what we might be using to replace some of our fossil fuel use in the future. Progress and environmental concerns need not be mutually exclusive. Of course, the big question is where does the energy come from to produce the stored hydrogen in the first place? I don't know. I don't demand that we know the full path before we look at it. If you think about it, we've been burning stuff of one kind or another since fire was invented to produce energy. The best internal combustion engine is just burning gas. If we've made so much progress, why haven't we come up with better ways to power our lives?

No deep meanings are intended by the above....just ramblings brought on by an interesting seminar.

Chuck

 

[BobRip]

Chuck 52, good rambling.

I am a firm believer in a free economy. Right now we subsize oil. For example assuming the Gulf wars are over oil (just for the sake of this discussion) then we should be paying for them with a tax on oil from the gulf. This would raise the price a lot, and encourage the development of new energy sources. If would also probably make congress impeach whoever made that decision. There are other solutions to energy. In the 1930 many farmers had windmills. The government sibsidized rural electricty and made the farmers shutdown the windmills. Windmill development stopped until the 1970's. And then the government had to subsidize windmills. What if we had had 30 years extra of windmill development and other devices to replace windmills? We will get there eventually, I would just like to government to help or at least not hinder development.
I am now leary of the govenrment pushing hydrogen. Maybe it is the answer, but we don't know and should be developing lots of alternatives. I bet a lot of companies will jump on the hydrogen bandwagon either for the tax dollars or to be politically correct.

 

[MikeD74T]

If they'd been right about the earth being flat, with global warming, all the excess water would have just gone over the edge & we'd have no FEMA today. I'm not sure we're better off ? MikeD74T

 

[IH3444]

For most commuteing to/from work, an all electric car makes more sense now than hydrogen cars. Electric plant fuel by nuke power. France does it, why not us???

 

[Chuck52]

IH,

I'd like to see more nuclear power plants, too. Sure there are problems with them, but there ain't no free lunch.

As to burning hydrogen, I'd rather see more research on using hydrogen in fuel cells to generate electricity to power cars and such. As I said, we've been burning stuff, like wood, coal, oil, alcohol, and various gases to generate energy since Adam scorched his new fig leaf trying to roast a marshmallow. I've been waiting for my very own triphibian atomicar since I read about Tom Swift's in about 1960. There are better things to do with the complex molecules in oil, and coal, too, for that matter, than just burn them in the very inefficient production of energy.

Chuck

 

[IH3444]

I personally perfer the fusion powered Delorean from "Back to the Future". Little beer and a banana peel fill up. No fuss, no muss.....

 

[Egon]

I know climate change is here!!

Day before yesterday the skies were clear and sunny. Yesterday we got wind snow and snow.

That has to be climate change!

 

[Bird]

Egon, Friday morning the temperatures were between 13 and 20 in this area. Now this afternoon, it's 74 to 76. I checked the air in all our tires, vacuumed and washed both the van and the little pickup this morning.

 

[tallyho8]

IH,

I'd like to see more nuclear power plants, too. Sure there are problems with them, but there ain't no free lunch.
Chuck

Seems like most people I talk to today would like to see more nuclear plants. The problem is they want to see them in your neighborhood, not theirs, as everyone is a little afraid of terrorrists flying planes into them now.

 

[BobRip]

Seems like most people I talk to today would like to see more nuclear plants. The problem is they want to see them in your neighborhood, not theirs, as everyone is a little afraid of terrorrists flying planes into them now.

Actually, I believe that Nuke plants are designed to withstand a plane flying into them. It would do a lot of damage to it, but no radation would be released. The reactor containment building is 4 feet thick concrete, with welded rebar, and a 1/2 inch thick steel liner.

Now flying into a LNG tank, that would be a problem.

 

[N80]

I currently live within 3 or so miles of a nuclear power plant. Doesn't bother me at at. Grew up within 2 miles of a coal powered plant. I prefer nuke as a neighbor.

 

[Egon]

Bird, I managed to slide sideways into a concrete post backing out the driveway and managed to put a real nice crease along and behind the bottom of the passenger door on the truck. Fortunately it didn't damage the door.

There was a definite change in air colour immediately thereafter.

 

[BobRip]

I currently live within 3 or so miles of a nuclear power plant. Doesn't bother me at at. Grew up within 2 miles of a coal powered plant. I prefer nuke as a neighbor.

Yeah, people forget that the flyash, sulfur and other stuff from a coal plant can be pretty bad. Oh, they also put out radiation from the Radon gas in the coal. Yes coal plants put out more radation than a nuclear plant.

 

[Chuck52]

I grew up near Oak Ridge and now live about 30 miles from a nuclear power plant. There's a reactor (small of course) on campus, and I deal with small amounts of radioactive materials regularly. Come up with a well designed storage facility, and you can store the waste in my general area. On the other hand, if we can design plants to minimize the waste, and I believe we can, all the better. I'm all for using any other viable sources of energy, though the word "viable" might be a sticking point in any discussion there of.

Chuck

 

[IH3444]

It's still statistically safer to live next to a nuclear power plant, than to ride in the back seat of Ted Kennedy's car here in America.