Global Warming

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greenpeace

Joined Sep 22, 2007
30
Its not a decision our generation will need to take, but one that our childrens, and our childrens childrens, generation may need to take.

Our generation needs to understand if and to what extent human activity is affecting the environment, and how we can change attitudes to tackle this for the future - herein the debate commences, and as can be seen it is not one that is agreed upon.

Dave
but our generation have to do some actions to prevent the acceleration of this disaster ,

it is not enough to just study the extent of the problem ( which is almost done )

some actions must be made by our generation .

the time is going too fast :D
 

thingmaker3

Joined May 16, 2005
5,083
LIFE or MONEY !!


we have to choose one


( at least from environmental view :D )
I'll take the money.:) Solves the overpopulation problem AND keeps my bills paid!:D

Seriously... my clever wife and I are learning pre-technological skills. We're buying land in the "high country." We're reading books like "Generating Your Own Electricity, " and "Peak Oil Survival," and "Countersurveillance."

Its going to get ugly. We plan to help rebuild afterwards.

Some would ask why we don't join the effort to stop the trend. Thousands of protesters and dozens of "experts" can't stop the trend, what good would the voices of a shrink and a construction worker do? What happens to the protesters when the oil is gone, the climate has done whatever it might do, and there's no more food in the inner city?

Ride it out if you can. Help out whoever survives. Build a better world from the ashes.
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
but our generation have to do some actions to prevent the acceleration of this disaster ,

it is not enough to just study the extent of the problem ( which is almost done )

some actions must be made by our generation .

the time is going too fast :D
The biggest challenge for our generation is winning the battle of attitudes - too many people today do not accept the science no matter how thorough and convincing (see what some people have to say in this thread - these are not isolated opinions). One can argue that we are at some level winning the battle of attitudes, for example my brothers daughter who has recently started primary school is very recycling and environmentally savy - this is true of her peers of the same age.

Once the battle of attitudes ion won (should it indeed be won) then that is when real change can start to happen.

Dave
 

FredM

Joined Dec 27, 2005
124
Damn it! If we (THIS GENERATION) do not act NOW, there MIGHT be ONE generation (the generation now in primary school) who, with a LOT of luck, will live a reasonable lifespan.. If WE do not turn this matter arround within the next 40 years, it will not make any difference what my 5 year old does with empty yoghurt pots!
Most of this recycling stuff is pure bull - it is a placebo to give peeps the feeling that they are taking action.. IT AINT GOING TO HELP ONE IOTA!!

"The fate of all mankind I see, is in the hands of fools

Confusion will be my (our) epitaph, as I (We) crawl a cracked and broken path,
If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh..
But I fear tomorrow i'll (our children will) be crying..
Yes I fear tomorrow our children will be crying.." (apologies to) King Crimson.
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
Damn it! If we (THIS GENERATION) do not act NOW, there MIGHT be ONE generation (the generation now in primary school) who, with a LOT of luck, will live a reasonable lifespan.. If WE do not turn this matter arround within the next 40 years, it will not make any difference what my 5 year old does with empty yoghurt pots!
Most of this recycling stuff is pure bull - it is a placebo to give peeps the feeling that they are taking action.. IT AINT GOING TO HELP ONE IOTA!!

"The fate of all mankind I see, is in the hands of fools

Confusion will be my (our) epitaph, as I (We) crawl a cracked and broken path,
If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh..
But I fear tomorrow i'll (our children will) be crying..
Yes I fear tomorrow our children will be crying.." (apologies to) King Crimson.
Do you not feel that tackling climate change is a two-way approach? On the one hand we should reduce our waste production which in turn will reduce (in theory) our environmentally damaging production demands, whilst at the same time reducing our reliance on the burning of fossil and non-reproducible fuels for practically everything.

At the moment, promotion of environmental issues is not at the top of the political agenda indicating the public are turned-off by it - the challenge as I said before is changing attitudes that will allow us to look objectively at how humans are (or are not) influencing the environment around them. Sadly at the moment, the two sides of the argument are polarised at the extremes.

Dave
 

thingmaker3

Joined May 16, 2005
5,083
Damn it! If we (THIS GENERATION) do not act NOW,
I was under the impression that we (THIS GENERATION) had been acting for several years now. Was I wrong? Are PV cells getting better every few months all by themselves? Were catalytic converters and hybrid cars invented by aliens? Did the Cafe standards for the American automotive industry come from the future? Outer space? Dolphins?

I've been hearing the "doom and gloom by 40 years from now" speech since I was in third grade. That was nearly 40 years ago. Where's my apocalypse, damn it? I leaned all these pre-industrial skills so I could be rich after the apocalypse, and I get no apocalypse! I want my money back!!
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
The sheer amount of people today compared to 40 years ago is a major factor.

For example, we are consuming considerably more electricity these days - many nations still rely on burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. Is nuclear the solution?

Dave
 

recca02

Joined Apr 2, 2007
1,212
The sheer amount of people today compared to 40 years ago is a major factor.
For example, we are consuming considerably more electricity these days -
and it promises to grow further.
many nations still rely on burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. Is nuclear the solution?

Dave
yes nuclear IMHO is the solution ...even US after the three mile incident hasnt made a nuclear power plant IIRC.
its just that its more popular in europe because of scarcity of fuel there.
experts argue that nuclear power plant are much safer and possess less danger
to life since they do not pollute air and the radioactive waste with proper management can be disposed easily.
 

recca02

Joined Apr 2, 2007
1,212
the waste is buried for about 30 years in a deep underground place and the waste is kept in
a container esp designed for it.
after that they dispose it in the ocean.
 

bloguetronica

Joined Apr 27, 2007
1,541
yes nuclear IMHO is the solution ...even US after the three mile incident hasnt made a nuclear power plant IIRC.
its just that its more popular in europe because of scarcity of fuel there.
experts argue that nuclear power plant are much safer and possess less danger
to life since they do not pollute air and the radioactive waste with proper management can be disposed easily.
No, nuclear is not the solution. Because it doesn't emit C02 to the atmosphere, it doesn't mean that it is clean. Waste has to be buried for 1000 years at least in special containers that won't last that much. Radioactivity doesn't disappear in a question of a few years. Also, nuclear power is dangerous for quite obvious reasons.

Wind, solar and hydrogen (generated by the means of wind and solar - not by the means of fossil combustion) are the solution.
 

thingmaker3

Joined May 16, 2005
5,083
I'm in agreement with Cumesoftware on this one. Multiple alternative sources of energy are needed.

More local sources on smaller scales are needed. Not only hydro, but micro-hydro must be expanded. More advantage must be taken of the constantly improving photo-voltaic technology. Production of bio-gas from sources like kudzu and water hyacinth are very promising and are rapidly gaining investors.

Grand cookie-cutter solutions won't work, but many small tailored solutions will.

This kind of thinking is not lost on the big money types. They too are well aware of the price of oil!

(If you get the chance, read Integration of Alternative Sources of Energy by Farret & Simoes - first rate material!)
 

recca02

Joined Apr 2, 2007
1,212
No, nuclear is not the solution. Because it doesn't emit C02 to the atmosphere, it doesn't mean that it is clean. Waste has to be buried for 1000 years at least in special containers that won't last that much. Radioactivity doesn't disappear in a question of a few years. Also, nuclear power is dangerous for quite obvious reasons.
what we are forgetting here is that we are not generating nuclear radiation we are using it.
the radioactive substance was already present from the start ,we just mined it.the chances for someone coming across it is same as before if we dispose it at that depth.even in breeder reactors we only convert one form of radioactive substance to another(thorium to uranium233 or uranium238 to plutonium239).
most of the nuclear waste that we dispose is not having as long half life as the fuel which is reused(plutonium,uranium).

now after making use of it we can dispose it in a very deep place (after about thirty years of intermediate storage) in seas and the concentration of radiation isn't harmful even for aquatic life and the containers are no ordinary containers, they are well designed for that time period. They themselves provide radiation shielding.(casks)

nuclear power station aren't dangerous its been a wrong impression created in the mind of people. remember there is only steam explosion that is possible in nuclear power plants(in the worst of the cases) caused by increase of steam pressure due high rate of heat generation and the harmful radioactive substance can be easily trapped in a concrete core above the main core(this wasnt present in chernobyl).there are a lot of protection and the technique used in CANDU and HWR type reactors is passive type which makes it safe from any increase in reaction rate.

the two infamous accidents were due to the use of poor control and instrumentation techniques (TMI) and poor design with a lot of other factors(Chernobyl) both of these could have been prevented at number of stages other power plants based on new technologies are a lot safer.(the Indian reactors have worked for about fifty years without any problems).

YOU gotta read about ALARA ,NIMBY,BANANA on this (funny names :D)

Wind, solar and hydrogen (generated by the means of wind and solar - not by the means of fossil combustion) are the solution.
there are a lot of problems with use of wind energy apart from high initial costs,the winds are not consistent. Wind alone can never answer the growing power demands.Same goes for solar. just for a few MW of solar we not only need huge investment but large amount of space(read about solar tower)
not only that it is unreliable just as wind.Again with wind synchronization is a problem along with other problems.

hydrogen will again require air for combustion..so if not CO2 we still have a large amount of NOx pollution to deal with.Again where is all that hydrogen going to come from. Is it again not explosive.If accidents can happen in NPS then accidents can happen here(hydrogen forms explosive mixture with air at 5 % to 75%...any leakage is Dangerous).

Again hydrogen fusion is the best alternative (again a NUCLEAR POWER PLANT) since the reaction products are highly stable helium so very little(or no) radiation hazard.If we can get there............somehow


Grand cookie-cutter solutions won't work, but many small tailored solutions will.
My nation suffers from a huge power demand to supply difference, the small projects that have been used uptill now have failed to decrease the difference...the major power producing companies have now realised that small projects are not the need of the hour besides they suffer from low efficiency, higher cost of investment and operation per unit power generated and what not.
Besides it wud be better if we worked on the concept of national and even international grids why set up load centre power plants when transmission can be made effective using HVDC techniques?IIRC i heard of a transmission plan from Africa to Europe!

Production of bio-gas from sources like kudzu and water hyacinth are very promising and are rapidly gaining investors.
again they are going to burn arent they?
same problem.COx & NOx...if fuel availability is a problem..i wud like to again state that coal is going to last for another two centuries at least.

The hydro plants are the best alternatives but again they arent much because of the availability of sites.
Not every country has a Niagara.

If you get the chance, read Integration of Alternative Sources of Energy by Farret & Simoes - first rate material!
i read the preface, now i more than time i wud need the money for it :D
 

thingmaker3

Joined May 16, 2005
5,083
Remember that burning renewable fuels does not add any more CO2 than was consumed by the plants from which said fuels were made. Coal and crude oil do not consume CO2, so burning them produces extra CO2. And sulfur dioxide.

Cost per generation of small scale distributed grid resources is coming down all the time. Manufacturers are developing modular (ie expandable) systems to meet the growing need. Cost per generation of traditional large scale resources continues to rise.

Small scale resources are less complex and therefore inherently more reliable. In the event of failure, a small resource on a distributed grid is easier to compensate for.

Distributed generation can easily compliment centralized generation as one is phased in and the other phased out over many decades.

Furthermore, waste heat from centralized resources cannot be transported very far for re-use. Only those industries in the immediate physical vicinity of the resource can make use of the heat. In a DG system, the local waste heat can be utilized by local industry and local residence.

An international grid is a fine idea, but the resources powering that mega-grid must be diversified. Micro-grids can and do connect to grids. Fancy power converters (also falling in price while becoming more reliable and versatile) allow distributed resources to easily sync-up with larger grids. They also have great promise to compensate for load changes within the micro-grid.

For a real eye-opener, look into micro-hydro. Not every nation has a Niagara, but most places have creeks!

By the way... have any of the fusion experiments managed to produce more energy than they consume? Is Lawrence Livermore still on track with that sexy new laser of theirs? INF or NFI or something?
 

Dave

Joined Nov 17, 2003
6,969
By the way... have any of the fusion experiments managed to produce more energy than they consume? Is Lawrence Livermore still on track with that sexy new laser of theirs? INF or NFI or something?
Lol! As a digression, where are the free-energy goons now? Given the "energy-crisis" I thought this would be the ideal time for them to prove us all wrong! Governments would be throwing millions at anyone who genuinely had the answer to the "free-energy".

Although I have been empathising with the nuclear option, only because of the current perception of the inability of renewables to satisfy our current and projected energy needs, I notice on the BBC website yesterday that there is evidence to support the notion that UK renewables could supply power to all UK homes - notice the omission of industry and commercial needs.

I firmly believe that any action will require a multi-source approach (most likely a combination of nuclear, wind, hydro, and solar), firstly to avoid the dependence we are finding ourselves in today with fossil-fuels, and secondly to ensure that we can actually satisfy the demand of all domestic, commercial and industrial users. At the moment I cannot see beyond nuclear as the option to provide the majority of the energy to the UK, and based on the example set by France, it seems the most feasible.

Incidentally, several people mentioned before the disposal aspects of nuclear energy - I know the government investments in this area are huge, and advances are being made, if slowly.

Dave
 

recca02

Joined Apr 2, 2007
1,212
Remember that burning renewable fuels does not add any more CO2 than was consumed by the plants from which said fuels were made. Coal and crude oil do not consume CO2, so burning them produces extra CO2. And sulfur dioxide.
fossil fuels were made from plants and animals.Moreover in that case these plants need to be saved since they reduce CO2, fossil fuels dont.

Cost per generation of small scale distributed grid resources is coming down all the time. Manufacturers are developing modular (ie expandable) systems to meet the growing need. Cost per generation of traditional large scale resources continues to rise.
whilst cost per production of small scale may be decreasing.cost per unit production may be increasing only for oil or gas based power plants. The cost per unit production (both in investment and operation) for larger capacity power plants is low compared to smaller units.

Small scale resources are less complex and therefore inherently more reliable. In the event of failure, a small resource on a distributed grid is easier to compensate for.
i wholeheartedly agree with that advantage.a small failure in large utilities causes the whole powerplant to be shutdown for maintenance and a large power is now unavailable to the grid.this is one reason why a plant with lots of small capacity units has better plant load factor.

i think i'll read 'bout micro hydro now :p
 
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