Important: Global Warming Concern

[Dent]

Osu!

Originally Posted by DKKC

In 100 years there would be almost no trace of our existance at all - nature would recover and trive. Th eobly things remainin would be the piramids, great wall of China and some other ancient rock buildings. Oh, and Mount Rushmore. Other than that, concrete and metal will crumble within 25 to 50 years - paper and digital recordings of our culture would be gone within roughly the same ammount of time!

If they say so. Almost 70 years after various mines started being sewn at sea and on land, they're still turning up and causing injuries. Laos still has about 75 million anti-personnel mines strewn across its land, more than 30 years after the war in Vietnam ended.

I wonder what the environment around our abandoned nuclear reactors will be like too...

Osu!

[DKKC]

Without people to tend to them nuclear reactor would reach critical levels in a few hours and the automated safety gear would kick in and switch them off... apparently!

[Dent]

Osu!

Originally Posted by DKKC

Without people to tend to them nuclear reactor would reach critical levels in a few hours and the automated safety gear would kick in and switch them off... apparently!

All things being equal, I guess that I won't be around to worry about it much.

Osu!

[cochito]

Al Gore proposed a 10 year-plan to convert all the power plant in the US to green-energy. I will strongly support that. Some town in Missouri is entirely powered by windmills. I think Southern California is an ideal place for solar power, don't you all think?

[tmd]

What is Green Energy? We now have huge rises in food prices and global food shortages and famine looming because the farmers are getting more money farming Bio Diesel! this is not tied up thinking.

What we need are sustainable solutions not quick fix politics. Reduce, reuse, regenerate and recycle are all better than reinventing or retro grading old technologies. (Man have you seen how many of those words start with RE????? What's that all about! )

As you say Conchito we need to look at what we can best use where; you have a hot part of the globe you use Solar, it's windy a lot of the time Wind, it Rains a lot (Er Ireland, Bloke?) you use water turbines. The problem with Governments is they are easily lobbied into positions that look great and can be implemented during their term so we always head for the short term gain; in the UK they are obsessed (this week ) with Wind Farms they are talking about putting up 300+ of them down the road from me which would be great except for the fact that the ones opposite my house (about 15 of them) and within 10 miles of the proposed site hardly seems to run so where is the data from this to support making the installation larger? It is not made public because it might disagree with their only plan, no plan B = no arguments allowed for plan A. They will waste billions installing them and then say 'oh it's not our fault Green Energy doesn't work- at least we tried'

[cochito]

As you said, tmd, we definitely need to re-shape our lifestyle. We all know how, but we often neglect the effort. I myself often feel like wasting too much water in this arid region, though I'm conserving as much energy and recycle as much as possible.
On "Modern Marvels" on History Channel, they were talking about a new kind of windmill. It doesn't look like the traditional fan-like mills, but it is a cylinder type that can function in any wind direction. Unfortunately, they were meant only for home-use since it's quite small. I'd like to get it, though. Jay Leno says his garage for his classic car collection is partially powered by this system.

[tmd]

Originally Posted by cochito

Jay Leno says his garage for his classic car collection is partially powered by this system.

Man this made me mad You're telling me the guy is boasting about having a wind turbine (I know the ones you mean and they do look interesting) which partially powers the a/c system keeping his collection of cars comfy!

Please except th the above as example A) as to why we must change or are doomed.

[cochito]

Originally Posted by tmd

Man this made me mad You're telling me the guy is boasting about having a wind turbine (I know the ones you mean and they do look interesting) which partially powers the a/c system keeping his collection of cars comfy!

Please except th the above as example A) as to why we must change or are doomed.

I don't mean we need to follow Jay Leno. I'm not even his fan. Yes, I wanna tell him to spend the money to something more meaningful rather than his classic car collection. But, I really want the some nature-powered generator. And, tmd, don't feel like we're doomed because I know you're making your own effort to minimize global warming. That's enough for me.
I'm sorry if I offended you.

[tmd]

Originally Posted by cochito

I don't mean we need to follow Jay Leno. I'm not even his fan. Yes, I wanna tell him to spend the money to something more meaningful rather than his classic car collection. But, I really want the some nature-powered generator. And, tmd, don't feel like we're doomed because I know you're making your own effort to minimize global warming. That's enough for me.
I'm sorry if I offended you.

Cochito - you have in no way offended me! It is the sold called Stars and their token gestures which are held up as models of restraint just coz they have a wind turbine or drive a hybrid car (really bad idea - but another issue!) in public while having a life style which consumes more energy than the average town which offend me, not you my friend as you clearly have a concisions about these issues.

[cochito]

Originally Posted by tmd

Cochito - you have in no way offended me! It is the sold called Stars and their token gestures which are held up as models of restraint just coz they have a wind turbine or drive a hybrid car (really bad idea - but another issue!) in public while having a life style which consumes more energy than the average town which offend me, not you my friend as you clearly have a concisions about these issues.

Thanks,tmd! But, you're absolutely right. They consume the way too much energy for sure. By the way, could you tell me about the hybrid car issue? I need to know the downsides of the technology.; I'm sure others are curious about it too.
Peace to you .

[Dent]

Osu!

My personal favorite in the hypocrisy stakes is Mr Al Gore. Check out the amount of electricity he uses at his Tennessee home, and compare that to the national average for an American household.

Osu!

[tmd]

If you take the total environmental cost of a vehicle as the point from when the car was first designed to when it is dismantled, or hopefully recycled, hybrid vehicles don’t quite match the hype they are currently getting.
A hybrid is a complicated vehicle, requiring lots of new technology and high tech components. A hybrid vehicle is harder to build because of its complexity, which means more energy is used in building the car. Some hybrids can charge their batteries from mains power, and this could be generated by ‘dirty’ technologies such as coal fired power stations or nuclear power. This is especially true for the pure electric cars on the market - it depends on how the electricity is produced as to what end effect your car is having on the environment.

A Toyota Prius and Honda Civic are most fuel efficient cars, which gives 44 miles per gallon. My Diesel Passat does an average of 50mpg and based on the 40,000 miles I will cover this year I’ll use 100 Gallon less fuel or 2,000 pounds less Co2 by way of not burning so much fuel. I will however produce 55g/km more Co2 as my cars drive system is dirtier (using the manufactures data) so the net deficit to driving my Passat in real terms is 2,850 pounds of Co2 per annum. If, as I imagine this car will last 15 years then the total fuel Co2 deficit would be 21 tons of Co2 or 1.2 tons per annum.

It takes around 33,000kW (3,700kW more than an average vehicle) of energy to produce a new Prius, this, from average electricity sources would produce 15.7 tons of Co2 (1.7 more than average), so still a net saving in terms of Co2 but now only 5 tons or around 1/3rd of a ton a year, if I catch the train a little more or walk a little more I could easily make this up - so it’s me not my car that has to change.
.
My point is not that Hybrids are bad news, far from it, simply that we should use what is usefull for as long as possible and don’t guilt (or tax ) people into buying products they do not need. Do not throw away a perfectly serviceable vehicle just to by a Hybrid, if you think it will suit your long term car usage and you’re current model has come to the end of it’s serviceable life then explore the Hybrid option along with others. I’m just saying that firstly it is not the save all panacea that it is portrayed to be, the above comparison with a standard vehicle does not take into account the reported environmental issues relating to the production of batteries or that personal vehicle usage is not the major contributor to global warming it is made out to be:

There are a reported 500M people in the EU so lets say around 250M cars? The average car produces 1,500kG of Co2 so a total for the EU from car use is….400M tons, if we all went over to hybrids in the next 10 years (as your car needs replacing eventually) the total would be reduced significantly to 240M tons of Co2 (you would however have to add the additional 28M tons of Co2 Hybrid car production adds so a real terms figure of 268M)

I did some digging around to put that number in perspective, and here's what I came up with: A round trip flight between New York and Los Angeles produces 2.4 tons of C02. The British Virgin Islands emit 84,000 tons of C02 per year, the European Union 3.1 billion, and the United States 6 billion.

So by all going Hybrid we’d reduce the % of Co2 produced by the EU from cars from 13% to 8.5%, a reduction of 4.5% hardly a mind blowing figure and surely one which could be significantly over taken by a fundamental change in our behaviour towards energy usage.

Another example for you (if you're still with me ): part of what I do is sell ground and air source heat pumps so here is the energy comparison for an average (new build) home in the UK:

This is a cost comparison for a 220m2 house (4 bedroom 2 bathroom), which is estimated will need 38,564 kWh of heat throughout a year.
Fuel oil contains 11.7kWh of heat per litre. (Source: Carbon Trust)
An oil boiler operating at 85% efficiency will need (38,564/0.85)/11.7 = 3,879 litres of fuel oil to heat the house.
Operating at an efficiency of 430% a ground source heat pump will use 38,564/4.3 = 8,964 kWh of electricity to provide the same level of heating.

In terms of carbon savings:

3,879 litres of fuel oil would produce 45,384 (kWh) x 0.26(kg CO2 per kWh) = 11,800 kg (or 13 tonnes) of CO2 per year.
8,964 units of grid electricity from conventional sources would produce x 0.43 = 3,854 kg (or 4.2 tonnes) of CO2 per year, a saving of 8.8 tons per annum.

As the electrical power for the heat pump is form mains electric this could be supplied from a green source such as a wind farm where your Co2 would be reduced to a negligible figure.

I’m not saying we should all go over to heat pumps, they do not suit every home but if we use as an estimated figure half the number of homes as we did cars, 125M the Co2 savings from heat pumps would be over a Billion tons per year or 30% of the current consumption, a bit more significant than less than 5%?

Please accept that there is a lot of estimation in the above and I’m an engineer not an environmentalist, politician or Scientist- I’m sure someone out there will have firmer data to provide a greater understanding of the issue.

[cochito]

tmd, thanks for your very detailed post. I drive Honda Civic (not Hybrid), and it still has good mpg. Since I'm unemployed, I drive only once a week for grocery. I think I drive less than 500 miles per a year now. but, it'll change once I get a job, I guess.

[Brazilian Berseker]

Hi everybody!!!!

I fully support all iniciatives concerning the fight against global warming. But a few things really bug me.

1) Global warming is known by the scientists since the 80's. But now is kind of cool talk about it. Most of the people that are "concerned" today, 10 years ago these same people would call crazy everyone that said anything about global warming.
2) Since people are so concerned, why (specially europe) is against the ethanol? Probaly because they don't have anything better. people say that Ethanol will starve the world, well grow corn and give it to cows, instead of people, that will starve the world. Sugarcane will not replace food in the countryside. Brazil has been doing it for 30 years, and the situation is exactly the oposite, we used to have a problem with starving people, now we don't have it anymore. Just because sugarcane don't take land from food.
3) People say....well you guys (brazilians) burn and cut down the rain forest. We should propably take it from you (ecologists, religious groups and NGO's say that)..........I say that Canada, Europe, Russia and US used to have huge florests thenselfs.........Now it's all gone. How those rich people can say anything about us? Don't take me wrong, I'm completely against cutting a single tree from Amazonia, but those rich kids can't say anithing about it, they cut down their florests. Most of the wood companys that cut down the trees are from Europe, US and Canada.


Well people.....those were some of my thoughts.

OSU!!!!!

[jcc]

Osu! tmd,

Very interesting post, thanks for the detail. I remember reading somewhere that it takes more energy to manufacture your average car these days than it will burn as fuel in it´s lifetime (given that most cars these days have a much shorter life than those of say, 20 years ago - hello built in redundancy).

Like you say, it needs a drastic change in our habits, better public transport to reduce car use, encourage alternatives like cycling etc, etc.

As far as domestic heating is concerned, I´m sure I don´t need to tell you that the real answer is to insulate the building properly. It is crazy to waste energy heating a leaky building when insulation it so simple. I also heard a report on the BBC World Service today about the opposite - cooling buildings in Australia. It seems that some architects there have finally woken up and are recommending using structures similar to ant-hills, which have vertical tunnels to help air circulation. Apparently one building using this priciple has reduced it´s consumption on air-conditioning by 90%. Stuff like that sounds like the way we need to go if we are to reduce our CO2 emission.

Osu!

[Dent]

Osu!

Thanks for that breakdown, TMD. I do enjoy the this type of technical information.

Yes, hybrid technology is new, and expensive. I still support it though, because the best way for me to talk is with my money. By being willing to pay for alternative technology, I make the companies that want my money do the research on how best to make more energy efficient everything.

I'm heartened that others are following suit. It's going to take time, but that's the reality for all progress.

Osu!

[Brazilian Berseker]

Originally Posted by tmd

What is Green Energy? We now have huge rises in food prices and global food shortages and famine looming because the farmers are getting more money farming Bio Diesel! this is not tied up thinking.

What we need are sustainable solutions not quick fix politics. Reduce, reuse, regenerate and recycle are all better than reinventing or retro grading old technologies. (Man have you seen how many of those words start with RE????? What's that all about! )

As you say Conchito we need to look at what we can best use where; you have a hot part of the globe you use Solar, it's windy a lot of the time Wind, it Rains a lot (Er Ireland, Bloke?) you use water turbines. The problem with Governments is they are easily lobbied into positions that look great and can be implemented during their term so we always head for the short term gain; in the UK they are obsessed (this week ) with Wind Farms they are talking about putting up 300+ of them down the road from me which would be great except for the fact that the ones opposite my house (about 15 of them) and within 10 miles of the proposed site hardly seems to run so where is the data from this to support making the installation larger? It is not made public because it might disagree with their only plan, no plan B = no arguments allowed for plan A. They will waste billions installing them and then say 'oh it's not our fault Green Energy doesn't work- at least we tried'

tmd.
The rise of the food prizes is because of the elevation of petroleum prices (transportation, fertilizers....etc....), because of Chinas economic boon (more people eating more)...because of the biodiesel that US produces (not ethanol, be sure of that) and because Europe tries to "protect" their farmers in very imoral ways.......basicaly thats why foods are so expensive....