[non-ceph]: Global Warming Thread

[sorseress]

Official IPCC website

IPCC — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

to download report
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

from papers

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21170552-661,00.html

Scientists: Humans 'very likely' cause global warming - CNN.com

Panel Issues Bleak Report on Climate Change (Published 2007)

More to come.....

 

[sorseress]

News...

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12232

The Times & The Sunday Times

 

[sorseress]

The melting of the permafrost in Siberia will release huge amounts of methane which will further speed up warming.

 

[sorseress]

new headline...

Climate change: scientists warn it may be too late to save the ice caps


Climate change: scientists warn it may be too late to save the ice caps

 

[sorseress]

Just read this ......

Timeline: Earth's Precarious Future

 

[Cairnos]

and we need to invest heavily in wind and solar.

One problem we have with wind power over here is the traditional:

"Oh yes, I think wind power is a wonderful idea and terribly environmentally friendly, we should definately have wind farms.....oh not near where I live of course, I meant somewhere else"

 

[Jean]

The problem is not anthropogenic it's URSINE!!!!

J

 

[sorseress]

 

[OB]

One problem we have with wind power over here is the traditional:

"Oh yes, I think wind power is a wonderful idea and terribly environmentally friendly, we should definately have wind farms.....oh not near where I live of course, I meant somewhere else"

One problem us cloggies have (and we ALL live in windmills, growing our tulips) is that wind energy will never deliver on the basis of lack of efficiency (air has too little mass per displaced volume; simple maths). If it were 8 Beaufort continuously, you'd get the rated megawatts for turbines alright, but alas on average we get 3.

In principle this means that even a large 3kW turbine delivers 500W on average, implying we would need to build Yearly Dutch Energy Consumption/500W = 12,500,000 kWyear/500 W = 25,000 windmills in a country the size of Maine to make it into anything sensible. Given the additional "bonus" of no power on a quiet day, wind turbines show their face as the subsidy eating machines they really are.

Solar: yes
Tidal: yes
Hydrogen: oh yes
Fission: Yuck
Fusion: YES
Antimatter: If only
Wind: big no no

 

[Cairnos]

Tidal: yes
Hydrogen: oh yes
Fission: Yuck
Fusion: YES
Antimatter: If only
Wind: big no no

There are some speculative plans for some tidal generators here but there are some concerns by commercial fishers that they may start competing for space. Personally I wonder what effect they will have on the tides themselvs in some places, I mean the energy isn't really 'free' but is being taken from the movement of the water.

I think that antimatter would face the same problem as hydrogen currently does. It's a wonderfull way of transporting energy to be used elsewhere (well except for the whole explodey thing) but the energy cost to produce it tends to exceed the energy produced at the end. And, of course, how are you generating the energy to make it in the first place?

 

[sorseress]

another interesting article...

Ocean's 'Twilight Zone' Traps Greenhouse Gas

 

[sorseress]

Re: wind power. There are some areas in the States, very high wind areas, where the generation of wind power is pretty easily accomplished. In some of those, such as parts of Texas, wind turbines are being interspersed among the oil derricks. In South Dakota a wind farm on the Rosebud reservation is already selling it's power. As a matter of fact, reservations in the northern plains area have a wind capacity of 700 GW. Currently the entire installed energy generating capacity in the US from all sources of energy is about 600 GW. Wind may not be the way to go in the Netherlands, but here in the US it has a great future. Add to that the capacity for solar power in large portions of the country. Right here in Az the capacity of almost every building and home to generate power with rooftop solar panels can not only provide for most, if not all of that building's energy needs, but on many, probably most days, those same solar panels can be generating extra power that goes back into the grid. What's needed is ways to make it more affordable.

 

[Cairnos]

Add to that the capacity for solar power in large portions of the country. Right here in Az the capacity of almost every building and home to generate power with rooftop solar panels can not only provide for most, if not all of that building's energy needs, but on many, probably most days, those same solar panels can be generating extra power that goes back into the grid. What's needed is ways to make it more affordable.

Well this article may offer some hope on the solar front

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4017784a13.html

 

[Jean]

There are plans here in NZ to put wind farms at Mahinerangi South of Dunedin and on the Lammermoor Ranges in Central Otago. It's meeting with a fair amount of opposition, not because of generating power or lack thereof but visual pollution... etc!

http://www.trustpower.co.nz/Content/Generation/WindFarms/Mahinerangi.aspx

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=37&objectid=10433527

 

[Cairnos]

It's meeting with a fair amount of opposition, not because of generating power or lack thereof but visual pollution... etc!
QUOTE]

I don't think we're asking for much, we just want power companies to produce vast amounts of electricity using a method that produces no CO2, produces no radioactive waste, doesn't use fossil fuels, doesn't require the diversion of waterways, won't affect tides, won't impact on the local environment when they construct it, is totally silent, and invisible. Is that too much to ask for?