456 replies to this topic

[Mind]

The problem with the errant data is a psycological one as well as scientific. When 1998 was announced (and errantly repeated) as the warmest year ever in the U.S. is was cause for many environmentalists and AGW proponents to go waaaaaaay off the deep-end and we have been treated to "end of the world" scenarios (really! the end of life on earth) for nearly a decade. Mass hysteria only leads to poor future policy decisions. Politicians are prone to over-reacting in these situations. Better data should lead to to better policy.

[Lazarus Long]

Here is a graph that I generated at the NOAA site.

While fallible, errors by a group capable of acknowledging them, then assimilating and compensating for their mistakes does not disqualify them as a source of data.



I created this graph of global mean temperatures at the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration where all NASA data along with a lot more is integrated, recorded and made available for analysis.

You can find the page here
http://www.ncdc.noaa...80.0&senY=-90.0

NOAA is a very useful site to use for this discussion. If anyone thinks they can frame the data to get different results from the record then please go right ahead, I would be very curious to analyze these approaches. On the other hand if your results demonstrate that Global Warming is an obvious fact then please share that result too. Also please don't play like the tobacco industry and suppress the negative results. I for one promise to play by the same rules.

If you look at the timeline for global mean temperature I chose (1890 to 2006) the trend is clear and the rate of increased industrialization, which yielded high outputs of greenhouse gases, parallels it very well. The deviations around the mean as well as the general increasing mean temperature are very apparent.

You may want to start here if you are interested in a search for data. Mind I would greatly appreciate your input for sources of online material. Both in terms of databases and sites like these that allow the data to be easily graphed.

Global Climate at a Glance

[Lazarus Long]

I found corresponding data from NASA regarding emissions output for the overlapping period to demonstrate my point. Man made greenhouse gases are differentiated from natural occurring sources as well as changes in solar.

Estimated Climate Forcings Today Compared With 150 Years Ago
This graphic depicts changes in 12 climate "forcings" or factors that have contributed to climate change since 1850.

These agents can be categorized into three areas: greenhouse gases, other man-made (anthropogenic) forcings, and natural forcings. The greenhouse gases consist of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N20) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The other anthropogenic forcings consist of black carbon (soot, formed by incomplete combustion), reflective aerosols (tiny airborne particles that reflect sunlight back to space), soil or dust, land cover changes, and forced cloud changes. Natural forcings include changes of the sun's energy and changes of aerosols from volcanic eruptions.

Growth Rate Of Climate Forcings By Greenhouse Gases
In the graph, climate forcings due to CO2 increases are depicted in light blue, CH4 in dark blue, N20 in yellow, and CFCs in red. In a new study, James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Makiko Sato of Columbia University found that the growth rate of climate forcings have slowed substantially from almost 5 W/m2 per century to about 3 W/m2 since their peak in 1980.

http://www.giss.nasa.../news/20020114/

The climate warming projected in the Institute scenario is about half as large as in the typical scenario from the report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is because the IPCC considers a large range of forcings and models. The warming in the GISS model is similar to the lowest of the IPCC results, despite the fact that the GISS model has a relatively high sensitivity to forcings.

These agents can be categorized into three areas: greenhouse gases, other man-made (anthropogenic) forcings, and natural forcings. The greenhouse gases consist of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N20) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The other anthropogenic forcings consist of black carbon (soot, formed by incomplete combustion), reflective aerosols (tiny airborne particles that reflect sunlight back to space), soil or dust, land cover changes, and forced cloud changes. Natural forcings include changes of the sun's energy and changes of aerosols from volcanic eruptions.

The total "forcing" of climate since 1850 includes a "positive" effect from all the greenhouse gases, which would have a warming effect. Of the other anthropogenic forcings, black carbon has also had a "positive" effect, whereas the other factors including: aerosols, soil and dust, cloud changes, and land cover alterations have had "negative" or cooling effects. Of the natural forcings, an increase of the Sun's brightness has caused a positive forcing, while variations of volcanic aerosols have caused both positive and negative forcings.

Although the sum of all forcings coincidentally is similar to that for carbon dioxide alone, knowledge of each of the large forcings such as methane and black carbon (soot) is needed for development of effective policies.

Climate forcings, or factors that promote warming, such as emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N20) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have increased in the world's atmosphere since the technology of the industrial revolution began pumping these into the atmosphere beginning in the 1800s.

In the second figure, climate forcings due to CO2 increases are depicted in light blue, CH4 in dark blue, N20 in yellow, and CFCs in red. In a new study, James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Makiko Sato of Columbia University found that the growth rate of climate forcings have slowed substantially from almost 5 Watts per square meter (W/m2) per century to about 3 W/m2 since their peak in 1980.

A watt is a unit of energy and a "watt per meter squared" is the amount of energy the forcing agents have over an area of one square meter. Typically, a forcing of 1 Watt after 50 years of would yield a warming of 1.35°F (3/4°C) by 2050 in changing climate model simulations. The peak in the mid-1980s and drop in the late 1980s of CFCs is evident in the reduction of the red colored area on the graph toward the end of the 1980s.

"The decrease is due in large part to cooperative international actions of the Montreal Protocol for the phase-out of ozone depleting gases," Hansen said. "But it is also due in part to slower growth of methane and carbon dioxide, for reasons that aren't well understood and need more study."

Hansen and Sato report that emission trends need to be further reduced to approximately 2 W/m2 per century for the next 50 years to achieve a "moderate climate change scenario." (excerpt)

Trends of measured climate forcing agents
{the source report for the above graphs and data if for any reason they do not appear}

GAO report on greenhouse gas emissions
http://www.gao.gov/n...ems/d04146r.pdf

New Jersey gov report on greenhouse gas emissions
http://www.nj.gov/de...05/pdfs/ghg.pdf

http://www.scienceda...20123080321.htm
Date:  January 23, 2002
Scientists Describe Century Of Human Impact On Global Surface Temperature

Science Daily — WASHINGTON - Human activity has affected Earth's surface temperature during the last 130 years, according to a study published this month by the Journal of Geophysical Research. Dr. Robert K. Kaufmann of Boston University's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies and Dr. David I. Stern of the Australian National University's Centre for Resource and Environmental Study analyzed historical data for greenhouse gas concentrations, human sulfur emissions, and variations in solar activity between 1865 and 1990. The greenhouse gases studied included carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chloroflurocarbons 11 and 12.

Using the statistical technique of cointegration, the scientists compared these factors over time with global surface temperature in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Cointegration techniques are not confused by variables that tend to increase or decrease over time or contain some poorly measured observations. As such this is the first study to make a statistically meaningful link between human activity and temperature, independent of climate models, Kaufmann notes.

They found that eliminating any one variable - greenhouse gases, human sulfur emissions, or solar activity - made the errors larger; that is, all of those factors taken together are needed to explain changes in Earth's surface temperature.

They found also that the impact of human activity has been different in the two hemispheres. In the north, the warming effect of greenhouse gases was almost exactly offset by the cooling effect of sulfur emissions, making the temperature effects difficult to observe. In the southern hemisphere, where human sulfur emissions are lower, the effects are easier to see, they write.

Kaufmann says, "the countervailing effects of greenhouse gases and sulfur emissions undercut comments by climate change skeptics, who argue that the rapid increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases between the end of World War II and the early 1970s had little effect on temperature." During this period, he says, "the warming effect of greenhouse gases was hidden by a simultaneous increase in sulfur emissions. But, since then, sulfur emissions have slowed, due to laws aimed at reducing acid rain, and this has allowed the warming effects of greenhouse gases to become more apparent."

Analysis of the data indicates that doubling the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide from its preindustrial level will increase will increase northern hemispheric temperature by 2.3 to 3.5 degrees Celsius [4.1 to 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit]. In the southern hemisphere, the increase will be between 1.7 and 2.2 degrees Celsius [3.1 and 4 degrees Fahrenheit], the scientists say, noting that this doubling is expected to be achieved over the next century.

Kaufmann observes that while to some, these projected changes may seem small, during the last ice age, more than 15,000 years ago, Earth's global temperature was only 3 to 5 degrees Celsius [5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit] cooler than it is now.

http://www.ens-newsw...06-11-29-02.asp

[Lazarus Long]

BTW I hope everyone notices the remarkable parallelism between the growth rates of human sourced greenhouse gases and the trends in global mean temperature deviation. It suggests that humans CAN do something constructive about this issue.

The pre/post WWII and pre/post 1900 period trends both show a very close statistical association, as well as do other more subtle periods. Temperature change (both positive and negative) tends to lag the production of greenhouse gases by a period of years to decades as the gases get distributed globally into the atmosphere and have time to generate the Greenhouse Effect.

Also the older rates of Climate Forcing tend to have more to do with natural sourcing and the more recent rates tend to have more to do with man made sources, especially as we see a drop off in the natural sources replaced and exceeded by human ones; like the human sourced N2O that we observe become a powerful contribution during the 20th Century.

The period prior to 1900 represents a drop off in natural sources that is followed by the early 20 century human replacement for those sources but the politics of the prewar period combined with the altered forms of industrialization and energy *storage in anticipation of the war actually yield a drop in human sources that corresponds very closely to the shift in climate we see beginning in the 1940's and subsequent reversal we see during the postwar period of booming industrialization.

[dimasok]

I have a question.
How can Al Gore be an environmentalist (ergo a a proponent of science) and yet remain a baptist at the same time?! In fact, I've read a blog of a guy who went to one of his presentations and actually seen his slides where he attempted to fuse religion and science with absurd statements going as far back as human history allows (apparently, gore went as far as christianity allows).

Either this man is a phony or something is terribly off here. Why care about global worming if you multiverse-trotting Jesus can simply remedy it with his supenatural powers?

[Live Forever]

I have a question.
How can Al Gore be an environmentalist (ergo a a proponent of science) and yet remain a baptist at the same time?! In fact, I've read a blog of a guy who went to one of his presentations and actually seen his slides where he attempted to fuse religion and science with absurd statements going as far back as human history allows (apparently, gore went as far as christianity allows).

Either this man is a phony or something is terribly off here. Why care about global worming if you multiverse-trotting Jesus can simply remedy it with his supenatural powers?

I know lots of religious people that are environmentalists. A contradiction? Perhaps; but it is very common I assure you.

[dimasok]

I know lots of religious people that are environmentalists. A contradiction? Perhaps; but it is very common I assure you.

I didn't expect religious mumbo-jumbo from Al Gore... he seems to be much smarter than the entire Bush administration or the political parties in the U.S.

[biknut]

So how would you explain the 1930s being about as warm as now based on this graph?

[platypus]

So how would you explain the 1930s being about as warm as now based on this graph?

What do you mean "about as warm"? Have you got a source for that?

http://en.wikipedia....bal_temperature

[Lazarus Long]

So how would you explain the 1930s being about as warm as now based on this graph?

Biknut you are reading the wrong graph the wrong way.

The graph you are reading describes the rates (and types) of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and the effect they are having at retaining energy.

What I said earlier is that there is a lag between the immediate introduction of the greenhouse gases and the effect.

First off as both the data Platypus cites and the graph I posted in the first place shows the basic assumption you are making is false, the global mean temperature in the 1930's was not nearly the same as today, it was almost .5 degree C cooler.

Actually what we do see is confirmation of the human impact thesis because in the period prior to WWII we see rising temps predicated on the earlier part of the century's massive industrialization but then the depression results in a sudden drop off of global input of greenhouse gases. This turns around during the war itself but only slowly at first. The introduction of greenhouse gas then starts accelerating massively in the period of the war and post war redevelopment followed by a rapid spike up in temperatures for the latter 20th century.

[Live Forever]

I didn't expect religious mumbo-jumbo from Al Gore... he seems to be much smarter than the entire Bush administration or the political parties in the U.S.

Unfortunately, if you want to get anyone to listen to you in the US, you almost have to frame what you say in a religious way.

[Lazarus Long]

BTW if you superimpose an economic graph of industrial production based on not merely energy but manufacturing you will notice there is a parallelism between the temperatures and economic health. There was a mini global depression (world wide recession) near the end of the 19th century too as the world's traditional political structures began to unravel and infrastructures began a shift away from the traditional models to the ones that dominated the 20th century.

The transition from coal based to oil based industrial economies for example and away from horse power to the ICE (internal combustion engine) etc. took almost three decades and culminates eventually in WWI. This is reflected in agricultural trends as well. This is when farming first took a massive nose dive and the railroads and banking industries began a massive merger process to eliminate competition through monopoly that results later in a backlash legislatively, as well at the first major waves of modern mass immigrations due to regional economic collapse occurred.

The point is that you can see a remarkable parallel graphing between economics and climate that lags in years (to slightly over a decade) but again demonstrates that human behavior is influencing climate. The lag is predicted by the science governing the rate of global distribution for the gases combined with the rates of retained energy that have a *cumulative* impact. This impact can vary widely on an annual basis but average trends are pretty clear.

The impact of greenhouse gas emission is not sudden and it does not reverse immediately either but as we see human inputs reduced in some areas we see corresponding slow downs of temperature rise as well. This strongly supports the argument that we are contributing to the problem but more importantly it demonstrates that we CAN do something about it. The magnitude of the issue is not beyond our ability to cope in practical terms only in political ones.

Often the denial camp has tried to point to aberrant individualized data to attempt to contradict the entire theory of human impact. The problem is that this is not about a single year or even a few years, it is about long term trends and we need a lot of accurate data to be able to develop highly dependable predictive models. That data is coming but has a higher and higher degree of error the farther into the past we go. However we do have some relatively reliable data sources and we are now gathering enough of these together from enough parts of the world to assemble a more accurate picture of global mean temperature farther into the past.

As that improved data is brought to bear on the testable aspects of the theory, it tends to support rather than contradict the initial thesis of significant human contributions to the causal aspects of GW.

[Lazarus Long]

I should add that while depressions have helped demonstrate that we can slow down the human impact they are also why there exists such a visceral fear of the process. Some of the solutions look a lot like self induced economic recession and many people will rationally resist that, especially if they are expected to change their behaviors and more if they see the burden of that change unduly falling on their shoulders.

However I think we are smarter than that and if enough people look at the problem we can isolate the constructive behaviors from the destructive consequences and develop a more rational economic model for progress.

[platypus]

I should add that while depressions have helped demonstrate that we can slow down the human impact they are also why there exists such a visceral fear of the process. Some of the solutions look a lot like self induced economic recession and many people will rationally resist that, especially if they are expected to change their behaviors and more if they see the burden of that change unduly falling on their shoulders.

I'm a bit worried that the so-called "peak oil" might be real and might cause a massive global move into fuels that release even more CO2 to the atmosphere (like coal).

[Lazarus Long]

(platypus)
I'm a bit worried that the so-called "peak oil" might be real and might cause a massive global move into fuels that release even more CO2 to the atmosphere (like coal).

This is already happening but it does not mean that carbon emissions must grow faster than general global industrial growth. It also does not mean that other gases could come to supersede CO2 before we can see benefits from CO2 reduction, for example CH4. Methane is shifting the models because global warming is releasing natural sources that have remained trapped in the tundra and sea bottom. This is mitigating some of the effects of CO2 reductions and there are other gases like NO2 that are made (if not NH4) that also are created even when you burn hydrogen in the air.

As we shift technologies all options have foreseen and unforeseen consequences but coal might not be as bad if we start by pushing for a serious effort on improved scrubber technology that traps the exhaust gases. I also do not want to see too much effort made to move to individualized coal use as that would make effective scrubber tech much harder to employ.

For example with large scale smoke stack industries like electricity generation I think scrubbers could actually create an efficient means of trapping carbon as solids and liquids that are used elsewhere in industry and hence become a source of raw material like carbon fiber for manufacturing rather than an additional contribution to the waste stream.

There is also the question of improved waste stream management and conversion of much of it into energy and recycled product. This is a growing industry with significant opportunity for profit. Biomass can be converted to energy in a variety of ways and the carbon that would end up in the atmosphere could be diverted in the process but all of this requires a more integrated eco-techonomy as a basis or to call it by a more recognizable moniker: eco-tech economic modeling.

[biknut]

I should add that while depressions have helped demonstrate that we can slow down the human impact they are also why there exists such a visceral fear of the process. Some of the solutions look a lot like self induced economic recession and many people will rationally resist that, especially if they are expected to change their behaviors and more if they see the burden of that change unduly falling on their shoulders.

I'm not saying I agree with your assumptions about why there's GW, but I think this statement is very insightful. You actually sound quite rational about it. My main fear is slightly different. Many people believe that a lot of GW fanatics (doesn't sound like you) would actually prefer this to happen, and are trying to use GW as a way to accomplish it, and then there's what you said too.


<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Edit by Live Forever: fixed quote</span>

Edited by elrond, 22 November 2007 - 09:12 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

My main fear is slightly different. Many people believe that a lot of GW fanatics (doesn't sound like you) would actually prefer this to happen, and are trying to use GW as a way to accomplish it, and then there's what you said too.

Since when has a disruptive social process not been used by opportunistic politicos of every stripe to polarize the majority into camps that favored their individual rise to power?

That cynical statement aside I would hope that you do not see the recognition of GW as valid as undermining everything you believe in and that has been my point too. I do not think solutions lie in the area of exploitive politics BY ANY OF THE PRESENT INTERESTS, INCLUDING INDUSTRY.

Clearly there must be respect for vested interest or we cannot proceed by a rational evolutionary growth process and will instead revert to revolutionary catastrophic processes. Do some want that negative result?

Yes, there are those that see this as a opportunity to overturn those in power in order to replace (generally with themselves) and there are those fundamentalists that seek a return to a mythical nostalgia of the past but more and more I recognize a growing respect by young entrepreneurs in a new market ethic and social sense of responsibility.

In this respect I think all that is required is a recognition of the fundamental problems and then we can still move to negotiate rational solutions and establish a hierarchy of values around what can be changed, what must be changed, what can't be changed, what must be protected, how can we go down this road and how can we develop meaningful common goals that meet our mutual and often competing demands.

We need to move past denial to understanding there is a problem and now how can we together best meet the challenges (still to be better understood) of what that means. There is not only hope, where there is the will to succeed and opportunity where too few have recognized it still.

We can not only stop GW, we can make it better and profit as a species in the process.

[biknut]

Soft drinks release CO2 don't they? Shouldn't they stop selling them because of that (I don't drink them much anyway)?

Spray cans are propelled by butane. Should this be allowed.

What about dry ice. Shouldn't you have to have a license to buy it?

[Lazarus Long]

Soft drinks release CO2 don't they? Shouldn't they stop selling them because of that (I don't drink them much anyway)?

Spray cans are propelled by butane. Should this be allowed.

What about dry ice. Shouldn't you have to have a license to buy it?

I really must assume you are being intentionally obtuse Biknut or that you really do not understand the problem in any great depth.

First off, there are obvious sources of CO2 that cannot be stopped unless you intend to outlaw all oxygen based life forms, including humans. We are all sources of CO2 and that is why regulation of non essential sources must be examined. Even green plants produce CO2, they just produce on net more O2 during their daylight hours of photosynthesis.

Nonetheless if you combine all the sources from life (bacteria aside) they do not equal the combined sources from volcanism, forest burning, and technology for volume and we can have little effect over volcanoes and most bacteria.

Soft drinks and dry ice are more examples of the red herring arguments that you appear fond of. Both are irrelevant because they both can be made from atmospheric sources of CO2 in the first place. Soft drinks may use chemical sources but if you really want to get a culprit then stop all beer and wine production and try outlawing yeast.

Yeah right. )

Again all of this is of minuscule significance and a serious distraction in terms of the scope of the problem. Fixation on this kind of objection is unproductive, more distraction if not deflection or deception and certainly not useful. For example; while butane is a potential greenhouse gas, it is not methane. It is chemically much heavier and less an issue because it does not rise up and mix with the total atmosphere, even if the volumes were significant enough to make concern reasonable in the first place, which they are not.

CO2 as a propellant is again obtained from atmospheric sources that are chemically trapped (sequestered) so using it as a propellant has no real net effect on its percentage in the atmosphere. It is like saying compressed air is a problem because using compressed air contains CO2.

CFC's were used for propellants also and they were stopped because of the disproportionate effect they were having in terms of atmospheric chemistry to the ozone layer. BTW butane is not used to a great extent as a general propellant anymore. It is far more used as fuel for lighters.

However they are a good example of when and where we heard all this blather about how critical they were to industry and how much western civilization and our economies would suffer if they were banned and/or strictly regulated.

Of course conversely, the truth is they are a good example again of the fact that those resisting the needed changes are even more prone to irrational hyperbole than those they fear. Also that we certainly can do something about the problems and that we can only hope that many of the proposed solutions might work as well as the restrictions imposed on CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons, "freon" ). We created substitutes and new recycling industries without ever going without Air conditioning for a minute. The economy didn't miss a beat and in fact new markets were created that more than offset those lost.

The ozone layer is still in peril from the residual impact and continued input of CFC's but the damage is reversing. Aside from being a green house gas, the damage to the ozone layer is effecting our health through rapidly rising skin cancer rates as that layer of the atmosphere is unable to deflect as much UV. However as the graphs also demonstrated the regulations over that purely human sourced gas are having an effect on the presence of the gas in the atmosphere. So it shows some regulations work.

[platypus]

(platypus)
I'm a bit worried that the so-called "peak oil" might be real and might cause a massive global move into fuels that release even more CO2 to the atmosphere (like coal).

This is already happening but it does not mean that carbon emissions must grow faster than general global industrial growth.

Yes, but if we hit a continuing energy crisis due to loss of available liquid fuels (say 3% reduction each year), there will no global industrial growth for awhile and we might see a rush to produce energy by whatever means, polluting or not.

As we shift technologies all options have foreseen and unforeseen consequences but coal might not be as bad if we start by pushing for a serious effort on improved scrubber technology that traps the exhaust gases. I also do not want to see too much effort made to move to individualized coal use as that would make effective scrubber tech much harder to employ.

Sure, but that technology does not really exist yet, does it? Many peak oilists fear that a permanent liquid fuel crisis is less than 5 years away. I hope they are wrong.

[Lazarus Long]

Yes, but if we hit a continuing energy crisis due to loss of available liquid fuels (say 3% reduction each year), there will no global industrial growth for awhile and we might see a rush to produce energy by whatever means, polluting or not.

***
.... Many peak oilists fear that a permanent liquid fuel crisis is less than 5 years away. I hope they are wrong.

Platypus this scenario is unlikely. A leveling of supply is probable but there is a lot of flexibility for demand to go down. This is in fact an example of market force working and this has been the case this summer in the US to drive gasoline prices down.

Peak oil is here and it is a reality that will impact global economy and technocracy but it is not a cliff as much as the crest of a hill. It doesn't mean the tank is suddenly empty because we are passing the half way point of global supply.

The ability for a variety of synthetic fuels to come online in a timely fashion is not an insurmountable obstacle. Liquefied coal is not a critical necessity.

In fact electric cars for example should be considered coal driven cars now because over 60% of all electricity is generated through the use of coal. Coal is here to stay and will remain a part of energy production for a long time to come however the costs for making coal a liquid fuel for home and vehicle use is simply unnecessary as it is very expensive to keep clean by even today's standards and it is not competitive with a variety of already emerging competitive sources like biodiesel.

Anyway it is far more efficient and cost effective to use coal in the grid than individually.

(platypus)

(Lazarus Long)
As we shift technologies all options have foreseen and unforeseen consequences but coal might not be as bad if we start by pushing for a serious effort on improved scrubber technology that traps the exhaust gases.  I also do not want to see too much effort made to move to individualized coal use as that would make effective scrubber tech much harder to employ.

Sure, but that technology does not really exist yet, does it?

Actually a lot of it does exist. While some of the more extreme examples of it that I mentioned are only on paper or theoretical other aspects have only been prevented because they were expensive or competing with vastly cheaper natural resources.

Biomass reduction into fuels and energy is simply a behavioral shift to begin with and can see a tremendous improvement technologically as soon as sufficient attention to the tech exists through competition. The scrubbers already exist and modifying them is not particularly a problem, particularly because so much of our energy generating equipment s becoming as obsolete as our grid and is already in dire need of replacement with upgraded equipment.

A real problem in the US has been the gross neglect of the infrastructure. The failure of the bridge this summer should be considered the canary in the mine, it is not only about bridges, it is about the grid, generators, dams, oil refineries, water systems and on and on. Soon we are going to see economies of scale that force us to abandon repair in favor of new structures in many areas and either repair or replacement is going to be based on staggering replacement costs that are far worse than they need to be simply because of neglect by industry, government AND the public.

However it also means that the opportunity exists for profit to visionary type industrialists that recognize the timing and ability to provide these more efficient modern facilities. When you talk with the oil/auto industry they talk in terms of losing market share to grid powered technologies as opposed to their *pump* technology.

This is really about a large cartel based industry resisting change or competition from a sleeping giant of an industry that is dormant and in need of significant investment in improvements, but also regulatory change not merely the *deregulation* that some advocated.

[Lazarus Long]

BTW I intentionally sidestepped the discussion of H2. I think we will see a variety of syn fuels that utilize a blend of H2 with CH4 with a medium to make them safely liquid better than LP long before liquefied coal can be made cost effective, let alone environmentally safe.

For example both CH4 and H2 can be industrially added to diesel to improve the cleanliness and efficiency of the power to volume ratios for the fuel.

[platypus]

Yes, but if we hit a continuing energy crisis due to loss of available liquid fuels (say 3% reduction each year), there will no global industrial growth for awhile and we might see a rush to produce energy by whatever means, polluting or not.

***
.... Many peak oilists fear that a permanent liquid fuel crisis is less than 5 years away. I hope they are wrong.

Platypus this scenario is unlikely. A leveling of supply is probable but there is a lot of flexibility for demand to go down. This is in fact an example of market force working and this has been the case this summer in the US to drive gasoline prices down.

But where is the new supply that will offset the (often rather sharp) decline of existing megafields?

Peak oil is here and it is a reality that will impact global economy and technocracy but it is not a cliff as much as the crest of a hill. It doesn't mean the tank is suddenly empty because we are passing the half way point of global supply.

Not empty but it will be the first time since the industrial revolution that people will have less energy per capita than before. It could get quite ugly before it gets better.

The ability for a variety of synthetic fuels to come online in a timely fashion is not an insurmountable obstacle. Liquefied coal is not a critical necessity.

I hope so, because otherwise we might have to kiss the Antarctic ice-shelves goodbye in the longer term and deal with massive sea-level rise.

(platypus) Sure, but that technology does not really exist yet, does it?

Actually a lot of it does exist. While some of the more extreme examples of it that I mentioned are only on paper or theoretical other aspects have only been prevented because they were expensive or competing with vastly cheaper natural resources.

You're right, I meant to say that the technologies are not mature yet, i.e. not demonstrated in large scale.

Biomass reduction into fuels and energy is simply a behavioral shift to begin with and can see a tremendous improvement technologically as soon as sufficient attention to the tech exists through competition.

It remains to be seen whether fuels from biomass is actually a good idea. Global food prices are already rising because of them.

[Lazarus Long]

I suggest that we take the issue of peak oil to the peak oil discussion and not overly confuse the matters as they are related but not the same.

However I want to take issue with the last point.

(platypus)

(Lazarus Long)
Biomass reduction into fuels and energy is simply a behavioral shift to begin with and can see a tremendous improvement technologically as soon as sufficient attention to the tech exists through competition.

It remains to be seen whether fuels from biomass is actually a good idea. Global food prices are already rising because of them.

I intentionally used the term biomass reduction and I do not think that we need to rely on biomass diversion,especially from agriculture as much, even though the politics of subsidy has made that avenue possible.

That is where the technologies have been developing but it is not where they need to go. WVO (WASTE VEGETABLE OIL) is not the same as diverting soybean production from food to fuel. I also think that there are a number of plants that can be used for fuel production that can be obtain through urban/suburban maintenance of road and waterways by using the harvests of maintenance for biomass reduction instead of landfill. The same goes for sewage and food processing waste.

My small town burns wood to heat their vehicle maintenance facility instead of oil or electric and they get the fuel from the waste of trees they routinely have to remove from roads and power lines. They do not cut any trees intentionally to meet this need. However even their efficiency of scale is suspect, but so is my personal wood burning that offsets more than 2/3'rds to 3/4's of my annual heating oil demand, however wood is a renewable resource and it could be made cleaner. BTW my town hall (separate building in the same complex) is developing a large solar PV array to offset their electric demand.

If industry would use fluidized burn to process more garbage and biomass waste while generating electricity I might be willing to contribute my fuel to that process as long as I could be compensated for my loss and labor with stabilized heating costs.

I only raise this as one example of a different way of looking at the problem, not as a singular solution. There are no simple single quick fixes and that is why we must look at systemic changes and the least disruptive means of accomplishing them.

[biknut]

Soft drinks release CO2 don't they? Shouldn't they stop selling them because of that (I don't drink them much anyway)?

Spray cans are propelled by butane. Should this be allowed.

What about dry ice. Shouldn't you have to have a license to buy it?

I really must assume you are being intentionally obtuse Biknut or that you really do not understand the problem in any great depth.

Yeah I know it's a weak argument, but do we really need carbonated soft drinks? When you consider the thousands of tons of them consumed worldwide everyday, the power consumption to make them, and all the delivery trucks driving around to deliver them the impact is probably a little more than negligible.

The fact that no one would dare to get rid of them kind of makes a point about how impossible it's going to be to get much done.

Same goes for spray cans. I don't think we really need spray cans because in most cases there's alternative products on the market that don't use propellants. All the spray cans I have in my house use either butane, or hydrofluocarbon 152a as propellants. I think the main difference between 152a and freon 12 is 152a doesn't destroy the ozone.

If we can't get rid of things like these, don't even think about the 500 HP Mustangs, or 8 MPG Hummers.

I agree with your idea that we can solve the problem (if there is one) with new technologies, without wrecking the world economy, but that's going to take time and it's going to have to warm up a lot more than 1 degree to generate much urgency.

[Lazarus Long]

Yeah I know it's a weak argument, but do we really need carbonated soft drinks? When you consider the thousands of tons of them consumed worldwide everyday, the power consumption to make them, and all the delivery trucks driving around to deliver them the impact is probably a little more than negligible.

The fact that no one would dare to get rid of them kind of makes a point about how impossible it's going to be to get much done.

Again Biknut I do not think you understand the scope of the issues, where the impacts lie and how to get the most bang for our buck in terms of investment for labor and money. Carbonated beverages are irrelevant, they do not represent in themselves any net change in atmospheric CO2. They use atmospheric CO2 that is chemically sequestered in them to begin with, so when it returns to the atmosphere it represents no net change. In fact arguably they represent a form of carbon sequestration and while the gas is in the bottle it is a part of the solution.

That was meant a bit sarcastically so please bear with me. The debate over sequestration technology and its goals is a separate important one to have but is not really relevant in this case. The transport and production aspect for the product is.

However in terms of the total scope of energy consumption the percent contributed by just this single aspect of industry and markets is negligible. My point is not that no one will do anything about carbonated beverages, it is that doing something about carbonated beverages is meaningless to the matter at hand. You could eliminate all carbonated beverages tomorrow and there would be no significant change in greenhouse gases. Killing all the cattle and livestock (they produce a lot of CO2 AND CH4) would have a far greater impact faster and still be of questionable value.

Same goes for spray cans. I don't think we really need spray cans because in most cases there's alternative products on the market that don't use propellants. All the spray cans I have in my house use either butane, or hydrofluocarbon 152a as propellants. I think the main difference between 152a and freon 12 is 152a doesn't destroy the ozone.

That is a BIG difference and largely the result of highly unpopular legislation. I already explained that butane is not as great a threat due to its molecular weight and anyway Freon 12 would still be in use if it wasn't for its photochemical nature. Not all greenhouse gases have the same impact per volume and they do not work the same way to interfere with climate, You seem to see all gases as equivalent and they are not. The trick is to put our efforts into controlling the high impact concerns first, which at the moment are CO2 and CH4.

If we can't get rid of things like these, don't even think about the 500 HP Mustangs, or 8 MPG Hummers.

The market will probably destroy them before politics unless we see more welfare for the rich like we saw with the Chrysler bail out. It is interesting to see how the Fed is propping up markets right now and how we don't hear a hue and cry from libertarians about how unjust that is. Why aren't we just letting the housing market implode in accord with true fair market practice?

I agree with your idea that we can solve the problem (if there is one) with new technologies, without wrecking the world economy, but that's going to take time and it's going to have to warm up a lot more than 1 degree to generate much urgency.

We don't need to wreck the global economy to fix this problem and that is the fear mongering element and double standard behavior I am alluding to in the previous comment about the Fed and markets. The point is that more than regulation, behavioral change is required and it will either come about through rational anticipation of issues that is moderated through markets and legislation or with will come about in the more common and less productive method of response to crisis and knee jerk reactions that are wasteful and usually cause more harm than good until things settle down.

The irony of the deniers that claim others want catastrophe is that they in fact may be contributing their share to causing catastrophe to come about. If you require crisis as an incentive for constructive change then you make it more necessary for crisis to occur instead of preventing the crisis and losing the rationalization for change that a history of crisis management depends on for validation.

[biknut]

Lazarus Long:  Carbonated beverages are irrelevant, they do not represent in themselves any net change in atmospheric CO2. They use atmospheric CO2 that is chemically sequestered in them to begin with, so when it returns to the atmosphere it represents no net change.  In fact arguably they represent a form of carbon sequestration and while the gas is in the bottle it is a part of the solution

I see what you're saying. I really wasn't understanding that aspect.

Not meaning to be a smart ass, but why can't we say the same thing about coal?

We don't need to wreck the global economy to fix this problem and that is the fear mongering element and double standard behavior I am alluding to in the previous comment about the Fed and markets.

There is a lot of fear mongering going on from all quarters. Those that claim it's about ruining the global economies, and also people like algore claiming we have to act now of face destruction in less than 10 years.

The irony of the deniers that claim others want catastrophe is that they in fact may be contributing their share to causing catastrophe to come about.

Yes, this happens frequently. I just read an article about how the black plague in Europe was made much worse because of the demonizing of cats by the church (government).

It's not just the deniers making it worse. Fanatics like algore overstating the danger and twisting the science to make his point is also detrimental to the cause of finding out the truth.

One question I would like answered is,

algore states in his propaganda movie that CO2 leads the temperature rise. Some scientists say it's the opposite. That the temperature rise leads the CO2 rise.

Edited by biknut, 28 August 2007 - 04:02 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

This one point is clear:

Not meaning to be a smart ass, but why can't we say the same thing about coal?

Coal is a serious concern but what I am saying is that there already exists scrubber technology that has a high efficiency and economy of scale at the smokestack level of industry that could *sequester* the carbon and release far less CO2.

I will answer a number of the other points later when time permits. Today I have carpentry to do but one thing that has occurred lately is a counter intuitive set of alliances of political, corporate, and economic concerns, as well as splits within the environmental groups over the question of nuclear power.

Nuclear power does not produce consider amounts of greenhouse gas by comparison to coal and oil and this has made it a debate about the importance of introducing quicker change now to confront an immediate problem versus handling the nuclear waste issue for generations to come.

[platypus]

Coal is a serious concern but what I am saying is that there already exists scrubber technology that has a high efficiency and economy of scale at the smokestack level of industry that could *sequester* the carbon and release far less CO2.

Where would the sequestered carbon be put and in what form? My understanding is that pumping it underground might work if the geology is just right, but not otherwise.

[Lazarus Long]

Where would the sequestered carbon be put and in what form? My understanding is that pumping it underground might work if the geology is just right, but not otherwise.

There are many ways to sequester carbon though the popular literature has only focused on the least effective method, subterranean pumping. I requires energy to pump underground but more importantly it requires an aquifer to *carbonate* or highly porous strata to saturate that will not leak back fast.

The method I am proposing would tie the waste stream up in solids and liquids through catalytic conversion with common substances like sea water and then require that the product is processed as a raw material in other areas of industry to produce things like carbon nanofiber for manufacture to replace metals in many forms or recycled fuels.

Some forms of these products could be complex compounds for specialized use and others reactive compounds with industrial uses or the ability to use the carbon multiple times before it enters the atmosphere. This reflects a strategic change in thinking about the issue not merely a tactical shift of methodology.

Once converted to a solid form carbon is effectively *sequestered *. As a liquid the end product must be more stable than carbonated water or the gas will be released by simple depressurization. Also the end product of sequestration should be useful elsewhere so that the product doesn't not become a storage depot problem itself.

BTW smokestack scale industry is the only effective way to sequester the quantity of carbon to meet the challenge of the problem.