The environment thread

[Balta1701]

WHaaaaa?

Can't tell if you catch the reference or not, but if you don't, for shame.

[BigSqwert]

I found this on Obama's site regarding transportation. Perhaps someone can find McCain's stance.

 

Reform Federal Transportation Funding: As president, Barack Obama will re-evaluate the

transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account.

Obama will build upon his efforts in the Senate to ensure that more Metropolitan Planning

Organizations create policies to incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of roads and

sidewalks, and he will also re-commit federal resources to public mass transportation projects

across the country. Building more livable and sustainable communities will not only reduce the

amount of time individuals spent commuting, but will also have significant benefits to air quality,

public health and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Level Employer Incentives for Driving and Public Transit: The federal tax code rewards driving to

work by allowing employers to provide parking benefits of $205 per month tax free to their

employees. The tax code provides employers with commuting benefits for transit, carpooling or

vanpooling capped at $105 per month. This gives drivers a nearly 2:1 advantage over transit users.

Obama will reform the tax code to make benefits for driving and public transit or ridesharing equal.

[HuskyCaucasian]

I just had a conversation a couple of days ago - for all the money talking about infastructure, they need to get on somehting like this. Japan does it, Europe (sort of ) does it... it's time for us to do it. And I don't buy the whole "it's too big" over here crap. Get this done.

My wife sells European Rail and she is so ashamed of our US system of travel. She'd love to see a "next generation" rail system through out the US. The cost IS prohibitive IMO.

 

I did some quick math using the numbers that the article provided. It is estimated to cost $12 billion for roughly 260 miles. That's $46,153,846 per mile. So, to do Chicago to say Orlando (my favorite vacation spot), that's roughly 1155 miles if you follow the existing highway system as a model for distance (it's about 1000 miles "as the crow flies"). That would be a total cost of anywhere between $53 billion - $46.15 billion.

 

They say L.V. to Disneyland would be around $55 or $0.21 per mile. Chicago to Orlando would be $244.32 - $211.54 per person @ .21 per mile. Note: They did not say if the $55 was one way or round trip. United has Chicago to Orlando @ 379 round trip.

 

If a meglev can do Chi-Orlando for $244.32 round trip..... that could be huge for them.

 

Now we just need someone to take up the task. Preferably not the existing airplane companies or large rail services. I'd like to see some new blood.

[HuskyCaucasian]

And that's the problem, IMO. There's no money or incentive to get alternative sources of infastructure in place. It's sort of like oil and alternative energy. No incentive to change.

The government might need to invest heavily in a new rail system. Current companies just dont havee the resources to do it.

[kapkomet]

Can't tell if you catch the reference or not, but if you don't, for shame.

Um... yea, hence my response...

[mr_genius]

The government might need to invest heavily in a new rail system. Current companies just dont havee the resources to do it.

 

Having a high speed rail system in the US would be great. But you're right, it would probably be really expensive to build.

[HuskyCaucasian]

California Outlines Broadest U.S. Global Warming Plan

 

California outlined for the first time the broadest U.S. attempt to regulate greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, calling for the creation of a new emissions-trading program and increased renewable-energy production.

 

All parts of the $1.6 trillion economy, the largest of the U.S. states, would be affected. Utilities, refiners, carmakers, farmers, manufacturers and forest managers would be called on to cut pollution under the draft plan released today by the state Air Resources Board.

[EvilMonkey]

California Outlines Broadest U.S. Global Warming Plan

And all the neighboring states will be lining up to host the businesses that will flock away from California.

[NorthSideSox72]

And all the neighboring states will be lining up to host the businesses that will flock away from California.

Sort of, but in the literal sense, not really. Oregon is a state that generally has very tough environmental standards, and AZ has some too. Though I am not sure about NV.

 

Now there is a subject that I have not seen researched, that I'd love to see - how various states differ on environmental standards, land protection, pollution restrictions, etc.

 

Instead of moving to a neighboring state, maybe they will go to Indiana, where they can dump all their s*** in Lake Michigan.

 

[Balta1701]

Another increasingly alarmist piece about the state of the northern polar ice cover, looking at the potential of an ice free north pole this year. The short version is we're still on track for less ice than we saw during last year's record low year, and we may well be right up against the "It all vanishes" tipping point.

 

We really need this thing to hold together.

[EvilMonkey]

Another increasingly alarmist piece about the state of the northern polar ice cover, looking at the potential of an ice free north pole this year. The short version is we're still on track for less ice than we saw during last year's record low year, and we may well be right up against the "It all vanishes" tipping point.

 

We really need this thing to hold together.

Lots of underwater volcanic activity there could be a big factor for that, not just 'global warming'.

[lostfan]

It would be pretty bad ass if that was happening on Mars and not here.

[Balta1701]

Lots of underwater volcanic activity there could be a big factor for that, not just 'global warming'.

I really am going to have to try to hold back on this one...because I just want to scream at this.

 

Thanks to federal science funding, we actually have in the last few years learned an absolute ton about the ridge that sits underneath the northern polar region. It's called the Gakkel Ridge, it's the northernmost extent of the mid Atlantic rift system. There was a cruise up there a couple years ago and it has produced some absolutely amazing samples including some of the freshest mantle peridotites we've ever found on the bottom of the ocean. It's very slow spreading, and over a lot of it is strangely missing magmatism, which is quite cool because it tells us something about the mantle flow directions in this area which we only have to infer across most of the rift system. You can see a good picture of the bathymetry here.

 

First, let me say...we've actually been there in recent years. Although it's very cool, there's simply nothing you'd call freakishly anomalous going on there in terms of ridiculous amounts of new magmatism.

 

Secondly, let's hypothesize that there was a freakish amount of magmatism there. Would it directly affect the ice sitting on top of it? The answer is probably no, because there are currents that would carry the water away. But this should be a fun mathematical exercise...here is where I get my data for the volume of the arctic ocean. I get a total volume of 16937480 cubic kilometers. I can calculate the energy needed to raise the temperature of this amount of water by 1 degree.

 

Making the assumption that the basalt's heat capacity is constant as it cools and neglecting the important input of the heat of freezing of the basalt, both of which are bad but the first shouldn't hurt me by more than a factor of 2 and neither should the second, and also neglecting the heat input of melting ice, i come up with a number of about 20,000 cubic kilometers of basalt would be required to raise the ocean's temperature by about 1 degree. For reference, the volume of the Kilauea Volcano, which has existed for 100,000 or so years on the south flank of Mauna Loa, is about 25,000 cubic kilometers right now.

 

So basically your claim is that a mass of magma the size of Kilauea suddenly appeared on one of the least active rift areas in the world and it happened so fast that it was able to heat up the entire arctic ocean to the point that the surface ocean, 1.2 kilometers above the rift, actually began to warm to the point that it was able to melt ice (note, this would require more than 1 degree of heating for the bottom part of the ocean because you'd have to move the hot water up through the entire ocean and it would really, really want to convectively mix away if you did that). And no geologist or seismologist or oceanographer anywhere in the world noticed.

 

Furthermore, I can throw one more piece of data at you...through heat flow simulations created for the snowball earth scenarios, we actually have an estimate for how thick an ice cap needs to be before the heat flow coming out of the earth actually begins to melt the bottom of it. The answer is roughly 1 kilometer, which is why the snowball earth models for the hard snowball have the entire earth covered by a 1 kilometer thick ice sheet. Above that point, the earth's heat flow isn't enough for ice to really care. So on a thin sheet of ice that a submarine can punch through, there's no chance.

 

Thanks, once I got in to the math, this was actually kind of fun. Desire to scream averted by math, once again.

 

Edit: should probably note this in case people didn't get it. Even if I'm off by an order of magnitude with that math, for a volcanic eruption to warm the Arctic ocean at the levels we're talking about, we'd literally be talking about an eruption that is somewhere between the biggest eruption on earth in the last 4 billion years and the biggest eruption in galactic history.

[Balta1701]

LOL.

 

After all the hubbub about how we need to open more public lands for oil drilling that's lasted for the last 8 years, the Bush Administration has imposed a 2 year moratorium on new solar plants on BLM land while they study the environmental impact.

[lostfan]

LOL.

 

After all the hubbub about how we need to open more public lands for oil drilling that's lasted for the last 8 years, the Bush Administration has imposed a 2 year moratorium on new solar plants on BLM land while they study the environmental impact.

wtf? That doesn't make ANY sense especially when you consider that the main complaint about the Democrats is that they're holding us back on developing any new domestic resources.

 

We need to stop talking about things, and actually start moving forward on some of this stuff.

Edited June 28, 2008 by lostfan

[kapkomet]

LOL.

 

After all the hubbub about how we need to open more public lands for oil drilling that's lasted for the last 8 years, the Bush Administration has imposed a 2 year moratorium on new solar plants on BLM land while they study the environmental impact.

 

 

wtf? That doesn't make ANY sense especially when you consider that the main complaint about the Democrats is that they're holding us back on developing any new domestic resources.

 

We need to stop talking about things, and actually start moving forward on some of this stuff.

George W. Bush is a pandering f***ing idiot. That is all.

[lostfan]

George W. Bush is a pandering f***ing idiot. That is all.

He doesn't even need to pander, what does he have to gain at this point?

[BigSqwert]

We've been hearing about the boom in alternative energy research in Silicon Valley for a while now, but not so much in terms of actual marketable products. That may be changing, though, if Mountain View based Sol Focus is any indication.

 

Looking at the history of solar power, one of the biggest obstacles to its broad acceptance and application has been the high cost of manufacturing photovoltaic cells, and the relatively low output. Sol Focus has a solution that they think could revolutionize the industry, and it's so obvious you have to wonder why it took so long. Rather than make a large panel of pricey semi-conductors, they use comparatively cheap aluminum and glass mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a tiny chip of photovoltaic, both reducing the cost of the unit, and increasing the efficiency of electricity production.

 

According to the company's website, these dished panels use 1/1000th the active material of a conventional panel, and will produce power as cheaply as conventional (fossil fuel) sources by 2010. As an added bonus, they also look much, much cooler than the typical shiny black slab, offering a gleaming sci-fi gorgeousness that we wouldn't mind on our rooftop one bit.

 

 

LINK

 

 

Edited June 28, 2008 by BigSqwert

[kapkomet]

He doesn't even need to pander, what does he have to gain at this point?

Ah, but he does. He's aligning himself with his paycheck after he leaves office.

[HuskyCaucasian]

From your "Run By Big Oil" Government: U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects

 

Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

 

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

 

But the decision to freeze new solar proposals temporarily, reached late last month, has caused widespread concern in the alternative-energy industry, as fledgling solar companies must wait to see if they can realize their hopes of harnessing power from swaths of sun-baked public land, just as the demand for viable alternative energy is accelerating.

 

“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Holly Gordon, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs for Ausra, a solar thermal energy company in Palo Alto, Calif. “The Bureau of Land Management land has some of the best solar resources in the world. This could completely stunt the growth of the industry.”

[BigSqwert]

From your "Run By Big Oil" Government: U.S. Freezes Solar Energy Projects

see post 514

[HuskyCaucasian]

see post 514

D'OH!

My bad

[HuskyCaucasian]

wtf? That doesn't make ANY sense especially when you consider that the main complaint about the Democrats is that they're holding us back on developing any new domestic resources.

 

We need to stop talking about things, and actually start moving forward on some of this stuff.

sure would make a nice talking point for Obama

 

"I want to push renewable energies while Bush/McCain bow to big oil"

[EvilMonkey]

So basically your claim is that a mass of magma the size of Kilauea suddenly appeared on one of the least active rift areas in the world and it happened so fast that it was able to heat up the entire arctic ocean to the point that the surface ocean, 1.2 kilometers above the rift, actually began to warm to the point that it was able to melt ice (note, this would require more than 1 degree of heating for the bottom part of the ocean because you'd have to move the hot water up through the entire ocean and it would really, really want to convectively mix away if you did that). And no geologist or seismologist or oceanographer anywhere in the world noticed.

Um, no, I didn't make that claim. All I claimed is that there was a large amount of volcanic activity under there and that it could have a significant impact.

[lostfan]

sure would make a nice talking point for Obama

 

"I want to push renewable energies while Bush/McCain bow to big oil"

I dunno if they are bowing to Big Oil so much as they are doing this to f*** with the Democrats.