The environment thread

[BigSqwert]

posting on Soxtalk causes global warming, bigsqwert. just something to keep in mind.

What's there to keep in mind? Unless I kill myself there's no way to make zero impact on the environment but I do my best.

[StrangeSox]

This is just sickening, but no one is reporting it:

 

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/429/Report-D...ssional-Hearing

 

The Dirty Dems in congress actually banned someone from testifying against Al Gore at the congressional hearing yesterday. I heard him speak the other day, and this British Lord is a great scientist and knows more about climate change and the earth in one of his fingernails than Gore will ever know. He provides scientific proof that everything Al Gore is saying is complete BS.

 

Lets see here. According to Gore, the Earth has been warming, but that is proven to be false as the tempature has actually been dropping over the past several years, and this is what we should be focusing on. Global cooling if much more worse than warming. Things can still grow and survive if the Earth is hotter. But if you go into another ice age, you are talking about mass starvation.

 

New York will not be underwater soon like Gore says, and in fact, over the past several years, tides haven't changed. Actually, top scientists have predicted that in about 1000 years, the ocean water might raise 2 feet at the most. OOhhhh, scary!

 

Al Gore is one of the biggest con men in USA history. I view him no better than Bernie Madoff, as all he has done is profited hundreds of millions of dollars from peddling this crap.

 

This is a very sad day in a America when Congress actually bans a brilliant scientist from testifying on a hearing about global warming. I am truly ashamed to be an American right now, because I thought things were different in America.

 

No, he is not. He is a journalist. This is just appealing to authority, but its not even the right authority.

 

[mr_genius]

What's there to keep in mind? Unless I kill myself there's no way to make zero impact on the environment but I do my best.

 

if you are going to insist on destroying the environment you can make ammends by purchasing some carbon credits from my new 'green' business. i sell carbon offsets! just send a money order made out to cash.

[BigSqwert]

if you are going to insist on destroying the environment you can make ammends by purchasing some carbon credits from my new 'green' business. i sell carbon offsets! just send a money order made out to cash.

I'll walk over a check. Don't want the post office driving it all over the place pumping co2 into the air.

[Balta1701]

For about a decade or so, we've managed to keep atmospheric methane at a roughly constant level after years of increase, in no small part due to the fact that recovering methane from things like landfills and burning it can be an excellent and nearly free energy source. Methane, as you should know, is a vastly stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 because of its energy absorption characteristics.

 

Last year, we saw a sudden spike in atmospheric methane. That was troublesome, because it could mean that other sources, like melting permafrost, were starting to contribute more.

It's now a 2 year trend. And the economic collapse didn't slow it down.

 

 

[BigSqwert]

Curious what effect factory farming has had on methane levels. When did those start popping up in the '50s?

[mr_genius]

I'll walk over a check. Don't want the post office driving it all over the place pumping co2 into the air.

 

that is a very environmentally responsible decision

[Balta1701]

Curious what effect factory farming has had on methane levels. When did those start popping up in the '50s?

 

It basically follows the CO2 plot shape. Not sure how good the measurements are from the 50's and 60's.

[StrangeSox]

Beam solar power from outerspace

 

Steve Chiotakis: In California, air regulators yesterday adopted a mandate requiring low-carbon fuels. It's the first state in the nation to do that officially. And it's part of California's wider effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The standards are expected to create a new market for alternative fuels. There's already a market for new ways to make energy, and a lot of it is out of this world. From the Marketplace Sustainability Desk, here's Jennifer Collins.

Jennifer Collins: California law requires utility companies to get a fifth of their electricity from renewable sources by 2012. So Pacific Gas and Electric has come up with one project that's pretty far out.

Spokesman Jonathan Marshall:

 

Jonathan Marshall: To send satellites up into space with huge solar panels, gather the energy and then send it back to Earth via radio waves.

 

Basically they'd beam solar energy back to Earth and then feed it into PG&E's grid. Hmm -- sounds a little like a movie coming out in a few weeks.

 

[star Trek theme song]

 

The plan is have those space-y solar panels orbiting the Earth within seven years. They'd generate enough electricity to power 240,000 homes.

Monique Hanis is with the Solar Energy Industries Association. She says the satellite project could make solar power more expensive and:

 

Monique Hanis: We feel that there's so much that can be done right now to capture solar power right here on Earth.

 

PG&E says solar panels in space would provide much more electricity than the ones on Earth do.

I'm Jennifer Collins for Marketplace.

[Balta1701]

Beam solar power from outerspace

I will defer to a useful alternate opinion for comment.

The PG&E deal is a scam. Pure and simple. We don’t need to study it in detail any more than one needed to study Bernie Madoff’s investment scams. There’s no way to do this any more than there is a way to get 12% return on investment consistently regardless of the economy. Didn’t stop investment in Madoff and it may not stop investment in this harebrained scheme.

 

There’s no way to get 200 Megawatts from orbit with microwave beaming by 2016 from private sector investment. The infrastructure to do it efficiently with microwaves requires huge structures in orbit and in-space assembly by robots. This is very far from existing technology. Microwaves are the wrong way to start a space solar power business. What we can do in a few hundred kilowatts with laser beaming to PV modules on Earth in a five year time frame because there’s no in-space assembly needed and single-launch vehicles could likely do it. This could realistically lead to a buildup of a viable orbital and power industry. Even so, we will need major up-front money to test the idea from the feds. The promoters of the PG&E deal idea say they’ll provide a thousand times more power and do it all from the private sector. Might as well say we’re ready to go to the Moon or Mars with private sector financing. The physics of this is very well understood by the research-active SBSP community.

 

Too bad, because when it all unravels it will be a major setback for space solar power. Ken [Caldeira], this is very much like your experience with the company that wants to get rid of CO2 in seawater by a proprietary process that violates basic chemistry. Their CEO says he has special insider knowledge to do this, and so does the company pushing this space solar power deal. His defense it that he took many companies public. These ideas get as far as they do most because people making business decisions about alternate energy are often scientific illiterates. There are real technological and scientific hurdles, showstoppers, that is; and there are often potential effective technical and scientific approaches around them.

 

The problem is not knowing the difference. It’s a much a disaster to overestimate the prospects for near-term profit based on flawed physics as to underestimate the longer-term potential of a new technology based on the opportunities that physics does provide. As Richard Feynman sagaciously observed, “You can’t fool Mother Nature.” If only we didn’t have to deal with those idiotic Homo sapiens primates inhabiting this planet. All very depressing because I’m a strong advocate space solar power technology.

 

Marty Hoffert

Professor Emeritus of Physics

New York University

More discussion other than just that professor's commentary at the link.

[StrangeSox]

Yeah, it seems like a completely unrealistic and unworkable idea. Way too sci-fi.

 

My nuclear question earlier went unanswered/ unnoticed. Does anyone know Obama's stance on nuclear power? The only thing I know of is stopping Yucca, which I wasn't a fan of. Any geologist opinions on that, Balta?

Edited April 27, 2009 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

I'll be seriously impressed if the lobbyists don't win and eliminate this...but I like seeing it nonetheless.

The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed renewable-fuel standards that could reduce the $3 billion a year in federal tax breaks given to producers of corn-based ethanol. The move sets the stage for a major battle between Midwest grain producers and environmentalists who say the gasoline additive actually worsens global warming.

[StrangeSox]

If we do away with ethanol, what do we replace the current blends with? It seems like a much better octane booster than MTBE or lead.

[Balta1701]

If we do away with ethanol, what do we replace the current blends with? It seems like a much better octane booster than MTBE or lead.

Doing away with the government subsidy ≠ doing away with ethanol.

[Balta1701]

I believe I can clearly recall about 10 years or so of the right wing saying "it's not going to matter if we regulate CO2 emissions, places like China are never going to do it and that'll swamp our numbers" followed by the left saying "China's never going to do anything unless we do something first, that's what comes with being a leader".

According to Britain's climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, who met senior officials in Beijing this week, China is ready to "do business" with developed countries to reach an agreement to replace the Kyoto treaty.

 

Miliband said he was encouraged by the change in tone since late last year in the country that emits more greenhouse gases than any other. "I think they're up for a deal. I get the strong impression that they want an agreement," he told the Guardian.

 

"They see the impact of climate change on China and they know the world is moving towards a low-carbon economy and see the business opportunities that will come with that."

 

...

China's official negotiating position is unchanged, but the government is understood to be preparing a set of targets up to and beyond 2020 to lower the country's "carbon intensity". This translates to cutting the emissions needed to produce each unit of economic growth.

 

Miliband said Barack Obama's pledge to reduce US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 has unblocked the international negotiating process.

 

"China used to think the developed world is not serious. That's what they were saying [at UN talks] in December," he said. "But now they know the US is on the pitch and ready to engage with them. It has made a real difference to what China is saying."

 

His comments echoed the message from Chinese officials. Su Wei, a senior negotiator, told the Guardian last month that the US had made a "substantive change" under the Obama administration.

 

"The message we have got is that the current US administration takes climate change seriously, that it recognises its historical responsibility and that it has the capacity to help developing countries address climate change," Su said.

[Balta1701]

Change we can believe in. Specifically...mathematics.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu today said he sees little promise in hydrogen-powered cars in the coming decades as DOE released a proposed fiscal 2010 budget that slashes programs for developing the transportation technologies.

 

“We asked ourselves, ‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no,’” Chu said in a briefing today. He cited several barriers, including infrastructure, development of long-lasting portable fuel cells and other problems.

 

The budget proposal would trim more than $100 million from the hydrogen program in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, cutting it to $68 million for fuel cell research and development and steering the program away from areas related to transportation.

 

But the budget increases funding for other vehicle technology programs, including electric vehicles, lightweight materials and biofuels. “We are shifting resources,” Chu said. “We are saying in the next 10 or 20 years, what is the most likely thing that will happen, what will actually get us on a lower-carbon emissions path.”

 

President George W. Bush called developing hydrogen-powered cars a priority, touting it heavily during his first-term as a way to curb pollution and reduce oil import reliance.

[NorthSideSox72]

So here is something interesting.

 

The Bush Administration declared the Polar Bear endangered under ESA a few years ago, but limited the scope of that declaration. The decline of arctic sea ice was the main culprit, but they specified that said delcaration could not be used to effect anything outside their range (the arctic region). Their worry was that if Polar Bears were protected under ESA, and the main threat was climate change, that the protection as connected with ESA and the 5th amendment could cause a domino effect, where it could be used as a legal tool against any sort of pollution or warming-contributing activity.

 

This year, Congress gave new SecInt Salazar permission to remove that restriction if he wanted to. After internal discussion, they have elected to keep the Bush limitation in place.

 

I agree with this decision - without it, their is a lot of potential there for throwing the whole thing into legal chaos, and its not the appropriate or politically smart way to attack climate change anyway.

 

[Balta1701]

I agree with this decision - without it, their is a lot of potential there for throwing the whole thing into legal chaos, and its not the appropriate or politically smart way to attack climate change anyway.

Again...I think it's leverage.

[NorthSideSox72]

Again...I think it's leverage.

That's the politically smart part I was referring to (in part). I think they know that trying ti fight the battle via a back door that way won't get them where they need to be as easily.

 

Also, one thing ObamaCo is doing right so far, is handling anything science-related (as part of Interior, Energy, etc.). They are doing exactly what I thought they would - letting actual experts decide on things, even if it runs counter to what their base wants - instead of shooting from the hip. Its pretty much the opposite of BushCo, doing everything based on gut feelings and idealogical stubbornness.

 

[Balta1701]

That's the politically smart part I was referring to (in part). I think they know that trying ti fight the battle via a back door that way won't get them where they need to be as easily.

Just like with the EPA now being ready to regulate CO2 emissions though...they're keeping the back doors open in case the Congress decides to lock the front door. It's exactly what they're doing with Health Care...they learned rapidly from the stimulus bill how the minority is going to respond on these matters. On Health Care, if the minority wants to filibuster, fine, the October deadline hits and it passes without a filibuster through the reconciliation process, so you better get in line. On Climate Change...if the minority wants to filibuster, fine, the EPA issues regulations that are a lot more stringent than what you'd get by setting up a cap and trade plan.

[NorthSideSox72]

Just like with the EPA now being ready to regulate CO2 emissions though...they're keeping the back doors open in case the Congress decides to lock the front door. It's exactly what they're doing with Health Care...they learned rapidly from the stimulus bill how the minority is going to respond on these matters. On Health Care, if the minority wants to filibuster, fine, the October deadline hits and it passes without a filibuster through the reconciliation process, so you better get in line. On Climate Change...if the minority wants to filibuster, fine, the EPA issues regulations that are a lot more stringent than what you'd get by setting up a cap and trade plan.

Sure, but they aren't going to immediately use the back door and then just hope they can fight through the mess by sticking a cross in the air. They're just smarter on these sorts of things, institutionally, than BushCo was.

 

[Balta1701]

The Republicans, who have no interest in obstructing things but are solely interested in good legislation, have lined up a series of 450 amendments they intend to offer to the Waxman Markey climate/energy bill.

 

Perhaps the most fun is an amendment raising taxes on Alcoa, Chrysler, GE, pepsi, Ford, etc. Why? Because they're part of the US Climate Action Partnership, which has supported action on Climate change. I wish there was more vindictive tax increases in government. It'd really improve our budget situation if we started taxing companies that give support to specific issues.

[southsider2k5]

The Republicans, who have no interest in obstructing things but are solely interested in good legislation, have lined up a series of 450 amendments they intend to offer to the Waxman Markey climate/energy bill.

 

Perhaps the most fun is an amendment raising taxes on Alcoa, Chrysler, GE, pepsi, Ford, etc. Why? Because they're part of the US Climate Action Partnership, which has supported action on Climate change. I wish there was more vindictive tax increases in government. It'd really improve our budget situation if we started taxing companies that give support to specific issues.

 

Wait that sounds familiar... Didn't we just do this on banking bonuses?

[NorthSideSox72]

Wait that sounds familiar... Didn't we just do this on banking bonuses?

Except those were banks that were living off government funding, which to me makes it just fine. These companies (other than F) are just fine on their own, and we don't need to be interfering, and CERTAINLY don't need to be penalizing them for voluntarily joining a concern that will help the environment.

 

[southsider2k5]

Except those were banks that were living off government funding, which to me makes it just fine. These companies (other than F) are just fine on their own, and we don't need to be interfering, and CERTAINLY don't need to be penalizing them for voluntarily joining a concern that will help the environment.

 

I really doubt these companies are getting zero government funding. I would bet they are being subsized in one form or another.