The environment thread

[NorthSideSox72]

Here's the sarcastic/angry counterpoint to that work from a few months ago when it was originally announced. The simple reality is that compared to every other energy collection and storage system, hydrogen as an energy storage mechanism is still vastly more expensive than the other options currently available and there's little reason to expect those costs to decrease as rapidly in the near future as other methods.

Its new tech. I still think its cool when new connections like this are made, and experimented with. Some succeed, some fail, some take time before succeeding... its still good to see.

 

[Balta1701]

Its new tech. I still think its cool when new connections like this are made, and experimented with. Some succeed, some fail, some take time before succeeding... its still good to see.

I think the thing that annoys some people about these sorts of "Discoveries"! are the press release campaigns, where a small step that 30 or 40 years from now combined with dozens of other developments and fundamental shifts in human behavior are treated as the next big thing.

 

You're not going to get a scientist to disagree with the idea of basic, seemingly useless research in a number of areas, because that can often produce big ideas. But the publicity, press campaigns, the use of those campaigns to grab funding that might be significantly better spent on other projects...those sorts of things can get on our nerves. The amount of money being spent on things like hydrogen and flex-fuel cars today that could go to much better uses is a classic example.

[NorthSideSox72]

I think the thing that annoys some people about these sorts of "Discoveries"! are the press release campaigns, where a small step that 30 or 40 years from now combined with dozens of other developments and fundamental shifts in human behavior are treated as the next big thing.

 

You're not going to get a scientist to disagree with the idea of basic, seemingly useless research in a number of areas, because that can often produce big ideas. But the publicity, press campaigns, the use of those campaigns to grab funding that might be significantly better spent on other projects...those sorts of things can get on our nerves. The amount of money being spent on things like hydrogen and flex-fuel cars today that could go to much better uses is a classic example.

Its the business side of science. It may be annoying to scientists, but its a necessary part of getting funding - marketing.

 

[StrangeSox]

I didn't really know where to stick this, but I found it funny.

 

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/74932

ECO WARRIORS SNITCH ON BEAVERS FOR 'ILLEGAL LOGGING'

 

 

GREEN campaigners called police after discovering an illegal logging site in a nature reserve – only to find the culprits were a gang of beavers.

 

Environmentalists found 20 neatly stacked tree trunks and others marked with notches for felling at a beauty-spot in Subkowy, northern Poland.

 

But when officers followed a trail left by a tree which had been dragged away, they found a beaver dam right across the river as reported by the Austrian Times.

 

A police spokesman said: "The campaigners are feeling pretty stupid. There's nothing more natural than a beaver."

[BigSqwert]

Japan harnesses energy from footsteps

Train stations in Tokyo are harnessing the energy of legions of commuters to power advertising hoardings and ticket machines.

 

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo

Last Updated: 10:45AM GMT 12 Dec 2008

 

Experiments have started this week at two of the Japanese capitals' busiest stations, with special flooring tiles installed in front of ticket turnstiles. Every time a passenger steps on the mats, they trigger a small vibration that can be stored as energy.

 

Multiplied many times over by the 400,000 people who use Tokyo Station on an average day, according to East Japan Railway, and there is sufficient energy to light up electronic signboards.

 

"We are just testing the system at the moment to examine its full potential," said Takuya Ikeba, a spokesman for JR East, adding that the tiles are constructed of layers of rubber sheeting, to absorb the vibrations, and ceramic.

 

Deeply dependent on imported fuel to power its industries, Japanese companies are at the forefront of research into clean and reuseable energy sources.

 

On the other side of Tokyo, a remarkable 2.4 million people pass through the sprawling Shibuya Station on an average week day, with many of them now treading on Soundpower Corp.'s "Power Generation Floor."

 

"An average person, weighing 60 kg, will generate only 0.1 watt in the single second required to take two steps across the tile," said Yoshiaki Takuya, a planner with Soundpower Corp. "But when they are covering a large area of floor space and thousands of people are stepping or jumping on them, then we can generate significant amounts of power."

 

Stored in capacitors, the power can be channeled to energy-hungry parts of the station, he said, including the electrical lighting system and the ticket gates.

 

LINK

[santo=dorf]

Throwing a wrench in here.

 

If you hvae 30 minutes to spare. It's a great episode

 

So Al Gore buys carbon credits from himself to justify using 17 times the electricity of the average american to power his mansion. Hmmmmm

Edited December 20, 2008 by santo=dorf

[mr_genius]

Throwing a wrench in here.

 

So Al Gore buys carbon credits from himself to justify using 17 times the electricity of the average american to power his mansion. Hmmmmm

 

The carbon credit purchasing scheme is completely hilarious. A total scam.

[NorthSideSox72]

The carbon credit purchasing scheme is completely hilarious. A total scam.

In its current form, yes.

 

If done properly, no.

 

Even in its current form, there is nothing per se wrong with people buying carbon credits. They just need to know what they really are. They don't actually cancel out or remove their pollution, in any direct way. Planting more trees or building solar cells are good things to do, but their ties to your individual pollution are so indirect that it cannot function as a real market.

 

Now, if they can have a real, national-level auction market system, it could be real and useful.

 

[mr_genius]

In its current form, yes.

 

If done properly, no.

 

Even in its current form, there is nothing per se wrong with people buying carbon credits. They just need to know what they really are. They don't actually cancel out or remove their pollution, in any direct way. Planting more trees or building solar cells are good things to do, but their ties to your individual pollution are so indirect that it cannot function as a real market.

 

Now, if they can have a real, national-level auction market system, it could be real and useful.

 

I don't care if people want to buy 'carbon credits' to make themselves feel better. I do not want a national carbon credit scam which is run by some scammer like Al Gore in which it is mandatory to buy in. Screw that. These scams do nothing for advancing energy technology.

Edited December 20, 2008 by mr_genius

[NorthSideSox72]

I don't care if people want to buy 'carbon credits' to make themselves feel better. I do not want a national carbon credit scam which is run by some scammer like Al Gore in which it is mandatory to buy in. Screw that. These scams do nothing for advancing energy technology.

Well, I could care less if Al Gore is involved or not. What I am saying is, if done right, a carbon trading system would definitely help reduce pollution and encourage further spending on technologies that pollute less.

 

And you don't have to force buy-in - you tie it to the laws regarding pollution output. The laws should be made more stringent, such that the limits on output for carbon oxides or other pollutants should be just a little above the typical use level. If companies meet the number, they meet the law - just like now. If they WANT to go significantly below the number, and sell their credits, then great - go ahead. If other companies go over, they have to buy the credits, or face massive fines and regulatory investigation (again, like now). The system can be implemented such that it would work.

 

And this is not meant to be some complete solution, BTW. I'm just pointing out one way it could be done.

 

[mr_genius]

Well, I could care less if Al Gore is involved or not. What I am saying is, if done right, a carbon trading system would definitely help reduce pollution and encourage further spending on technologies that pollute less.

 

And you don't have to force buy-in - you tie it to the laws regarding pollution output. The laws should be made more stringent, such that the limits on output for carbon oxides or other pollutants should be just a little above the typical use level. If companies meet the number, they meet the law - just like now. If they WANT to go significantly below the number, and sell their credits, then great - go ahead. If other companies go over, they have to buy the credits, or face massive fines and regulatory investigation (again, like now). The system can be implemented such that it would work.

 

And this is not meant to be some complete solution, BTW. I'm just pointing out one way it could be done.

 

I have no faith in a carbon selling/buying system. I believe it will be wasteful, corrupt, and have far too many politically fraudulent aspects. I would much rather see resources placed into direct funding for advanced engineering; a much better solution in my opinion.

Edited December 21, 2008 by mr_genius

[santo=dorf]

Has the luxury cap kept the Yankees from overspending each year? Are the small markets using that payback money to make a better life for themselves? Of course not. Why would we expect large companies to change their business model or methods if it's profitable and its a drop in the bucket for costs?

 

 

What about the argument that 97% of all CO2 emitted each year is by natural causes? Volcanos are a much large source of emitting CO2. How do we collect money from those environmental hating volcanos?

[NorthSideSox72]

I have no faith in a carbon selling/buying system. It believe it will be wasteful, corrupt, and have far too many politically fraudulent aspects. I would much rather see resources placed into direct funding for advanced engineering; a much better solution in my opinion.

It could definitely go wrong, no doubt. And I agree its less useful than funding the tech itself. But I do think the system could provide a benefit.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

Has the luxury cap kept the Yankees from overspending each year? Are the small markets using that payback money to make a better life for themselves? Of course not. Why would we expect large companies to change their business model or methods if it's profitable and its a drop in the bucket for costs?

 

 

What about the argument that 97% of all CO2 emitted each year is by natural causes? Volcanos are a much large source of emitting CO2. How do we collect money from those environmental hating volcanos?

3% (or 4%) is actually quite a lot. Also, you are ignoring the scrubbing factor, and the human-caused dramatic decrease in those green materials necessary.

 

[Balta1701]

What about the argument that 97% of all CO2 emitted each year is by natural causes? Volcanos are a much large source of emitting CO2. How do we collect money from those environmental hating volcanos?

We stop lying to ourselves and actually pay attention to the measurements that show the exact opposite.

Gas studies at volcanoes worldwide have helped volcanologists tally up a global volcanic CO2 budget in the same way that nations around the globe have cooperated to determine how much CO2 is released by human activity through the burning of fossil fuels. Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

 

This seems like a huge amount of CO2, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) website (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put the volcanic CO2 tally into perspective. Because while 200 million tonnes of CO2 is large, the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value.

[StrangeSox]

We stop lying to ourselves and actually pay attention to the measurements that show the exact opposite.

 

Get out of here with your precious science and facts!

 

What about the sunspot contention (more sunspots lately = rise in temperatures on Earth, Mars, etc.)?

[Balta1701]

Get out of here with your precious science and facts!

 

What about the sunspot contention (more sunspots lately = rise in temperatures on Earth, Mars, etc.)?

Well, the sunspot thing is a little less blatant than that one, typically, because there are some acutal folks out there doing careful work on the interactions between those cycles and the climate. But, to steal a phrase from realclimate, that science tends to wind up in 3 categories; the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good stuff actually focuses on what the data is showing. The bad stuff is bad science, the stuff that sometimes just happens if you misinterpret a signal or do something wrong in a measurement. The ugly is the stuff that is deliberately done wrong because it produces the outcome that the people with the money in the energy industry want to see.

 

First correction; we're actually at a sunspot minimum right now, the minimum was supposed to be hit in 2006 and it's been a slow recovery for the sun.

 

This image though I think is the simplest way to look at it. Shown here are 3 indexes for solar activity (one measured in the earth's atmosphere, one measured by SOHO I think, etc.) plotted against the global mean temperature graph. The temperature is in red.

 

 

Simple observation; the global mean temperature has increased in the last 20 years. It has been mediated by other factors (El Nino southern Oscilliation, the Pinatubo eruption in 91, etc.) But its trend is obvious. The sun has shown no index that gives a similar trend. Its activity has gone up and down, and the correlation between its behavior and the earth's climate is poor.

 

From the impression I've gotten, most of the people who come out and claim a strong, first order correlation between temperature and the suns activity over the last 100 years fall in to the "ugly" category. They take unrepresentative data sets, maneuver things around, and make their correlations look a lot better than they actually are.

[Balta1701]

Well, I could care less if Al Gore is involved or not. What I am saying is, if done right, a carbon trading system would definitely help reduce pollution and encourage further spending on technologies that pollute less.

 

And you don't have to force buy-in - you tie it to the laws regarding pollution output. The laws should be made more stringent, such that the limits on output for carbon oxides or other pollutants should be just a little above the typical use level. If companies meet the number, they meet the law - just like now. If they WANT to go significantly below the number, and sell their credits, then great - go ahead. If other companies go over, they have to buy the credits, or face massive fines and regulatory investigation (again, like now). The system can be implemented such that it would work.

 

And this is not meant to be some complete solution, BTW. I'm just pointing out one way it could be done.

Amazingly, I think I'm going to disagree with you here. Based on the European experience, I'm more and more convinced that a European/McCain style "cap and trade" system just will not work. Especially here. When Europe tried it, their hearts were in the right place, but their heads weren't. They took far too many steps to avoid hurting industry in how they designed their system, where their permits were given out to companies and those companies were then only required to pay money if they needed to buy more. The European system may work better in a few years as they turn down the emissions dial, but in terms of applying that model to the U.S., given that Europe doesn't have to deal with an entire political party that is in the hands of the oil industry like we do, I think that a cap and trade system would just be designed to fail.

 

There is, however, a better and vastly simpler way to do it; a carbon tax. Rather than handing out or auctioning off credits, the government already has the data it needs to implement an appropriate system. A certain mass of coal, gasoline, oil, or natural gas that is burnt will release a certain amount of CO2 to the atmosphere. The U.S. keeps solid data on how much of these fuels are produced and burnt within the country, since it's not that easy to sneak in an oil tanker or a train full of coal (i.e. the creation of a black market is virtually impossible because of the volumes involved). If you create a tax on the amount of carbon burnt, there's no trading of credits to worry about; the more you use the more you pay. There's no place for lobbyists other than preventing the tax from existing in the first place, where in any sort of cap and trade system, the price of credits or the amount of credits going to each place can be up for complex and annoying lobbying schemes.

 

The problem so far is that virtually every system in place has been designed to fail. That doesn't mean it's impossible to design one to succeed, it just means that if you let the people who want it to fail design the system, it's going to fail.

[kapkomet]

Let's all just stop breathing, ok? That would solve the problem once and for all.

 

[Balta1701]

Let's all just stop breathing, ok? That would solve the problem once and for all.

Honestly, gas that comes out of your mouth isn't as much of a contributor as gas coming out of other locations on the human body.

[kapkomet]

Honestly, gas that comes out of your mouth isn't as much of a contributor as gas coming out of other locations on the human body.

I know but if we all just stop breathing, we won't have to worry about carbon pollution anymore... at all... yay! The earth is saved!

 

 

[BigSqwert]

This Obama appointment makes me very happy.

[BigSqwert]

A step in the right direction for Ford:

 

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co.'s much ballyhooed 2010 Fusion Hybrid will get 41 city miles per gallon and 36 mpg on highways, based on final certification figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the company said Monday.

 

The move is one of the final steps in getting the vehicle to dealerships next spring. Certification of the vehicle was recently completed at the company's testing laboratories in Allen Park, Mich.

 

Ford said that the Fusion Hybrid tops Toyota's Camry hybrid _ its main competitor_ mileage by 8 mpg in the city and 2 mpg on the highway.

 

The Fusion can travel up to 47 miles per hour using only battery power. After 47 miles, the car's four-cylinder engine turns on to power the car and recharge the battery.

 

The Fusion's nickel-metal hydride battery is lighter and produces 20 percent more power than the Ford Escape hybrid. It also devised a way to get 28 percent more power out of the battery cells, said Praveen Cherian, program leader for the Fusion Hybrid.

 

"It's not just one thing, but thousands," he said of the improved mileage numbers. "We've optimized the heck out of that vehicle, it's individual components."

 

The battery can also tolerate higher temperatures, and Ford has eliminated its battery cooling system in the Fusion, allowing the battery to cool using regular cabin air.

 

The company has also improved its regenerative braking system, which captures energy lost through brake friction and stores it for battery usage. Ford said 94 percent of brake friction energy is recovered in the new model.

 

The Fusion also includes SmartGauge technology, which helps drivers adjust their driving to get more mileage out of the car.

 

Ford unveiled the Fusion Hybrid at the Los Angeles Auto Show last month, along with the Mercury Milan hybrid.

 

[Balta1701]

A thing of beauty. In their rush to sell off as much land as possible for oil and mineral exploration, the Bush Admin. has been holding auctions through the BLM. An environmental activist of some sort managed to get himself in to one of these auctions, and while he didn't win most of the leases he bid on, was able to drive up the price paid by the exploration companies by several million dollars because they had to outbid him.

 

The whole idea of an unrigged auction of course would be that it should drive prices to an equilibrium; if someone is willing to pay more for a parcel of land, they ought to pay it, unless there's already some sort of understanding that this is how much you'd be paying. And since it's pretty clear there was some sort of understanding beforehand, the people wanting to buy the land are outraged, because they had to pay more than they feel they should have. And of course, the BLM, which would gain the money and therefore have slightly more money for the taxpayers...is offering refunds.

 

This guy exposed like a half dozen different levels of corruption in the auction process, and if anyone gets prosecuted it'll be him. Whopee!

[Balta1701]

Ice caps continue melting at rates much higher than predicted in the conservative/somewhat politicized IPCC reports, causing sea level rise to continue to accelerate.

In one of the report’s most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea levels could rise as much as 4 feet by 2100. The intergovernment panel had projected a rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the last two years show the world’s major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice in the Alps.