We in Texas have excellent solar heating and Wind generation potentional. The wind resources are generally in areas that are remote and don't have the transmission lines available to get the electricity the hundreds of miles to the cities that need it. As for solar, we are starting to see more panels being put up. but its a very slow and on the front end expensive process. Once people see that they can reduce or eliminate their entire electric bill we will see a solar/wind power boom. Heck they are selling small electric wind generators at Fry's for a couple hundred dollars. THey dont generate much power all at once but over a year or 2 they can pay for themselves with the reduction in your total electric cost.

---

In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Obviously you have never been to New Zealand.
We nearly always have wind here.

You do not appear to be reading for comprehension.

Nearly always does does not mean at the highest useful speed. This means you have to overbuild to the minimum wind speed.

Nearly always means sometimes never. This means you need conventional or nuclear to produce ALL that is needed some times.

It is rather elementary engineering that whoever chooses to build wind farms needs conventional/nuclear power plants whose capacity is the same as though there were no wind farms at all. It means those who choose to add wind power are producing generating capacity over and above the installed capacity of enough.

Given current costs it means after building sufficient regular capacity you choose to produce more expensive power from wind instead of from installed capacity.

It is a deliberate choice to pay more for electricity to no apparent benefit.

If one does not have backup power generation equal to full demand one chooses to do without electricity on the occasions when there is no wind. In the world's major blackouts people do seem to enjoy them for a while as there is a population spike nine months later. These have been on the order of hours. Weather patterns tend to run in 7 to 10 day cycles.

It is unclear just what benefit one is purchasing with this highly uneconomic approach to power generation.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

We in Texas have excellent solar heating and Wind generation potentional. The wind resources are generally in areas that are remote and don't have the transmission lines available to get the electricity the hundreds of miles to the cities that need it. As for solar, we are starting to see more panels being put up. but its a very slow and on the front end expensive process. Once people see that they can reduce or eliminate their entire electric bill we will see a solar/wind power boom. Heck they are selling small electric wind generators at Fry's for a couple hundred dollars. THey dont generate much power all at once but over a year or 2 they can pay for themselves with the reduction in your total electric cost.

The thing itself may pay for itself in a year or two? How long to pay for the installation costs as in the foundation, mounting pole and guywires? Is it guaranteed to have no maintenance costs during the payback period as in storage batteries and inverters? Does home insurance cost remain the same, as in the damage of one of these things blowing over? Are they aesthetic enough to avoid being banned as outdoor TV antennas were a few decades ago?

There is the cost of acquisition and the cost of ownership. Both costs must be fully evaluated. That total cost must be compared to the kilowatt-hour cost from the power company.

Of course believers can imaginatively come up with all kinds of intangible costs for non-wind power but they are all included in the powerline cost. It may all be touchy-feely good in theory but the practice is in cash.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

So maybe it isn't humans after all ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100304/sc_nm/us_climate_methane
Methane bubbles in Arctic seas stir warming fears
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent – Thu Mar 4, 2:26 pm ET
OSLO (Reuters) – Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said.
It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries -- since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change.

---

Obviously you have never been to New Zealand.
We nearly always have wind here.

You do not appear to be reading for comprehension.

Nearly always does does not mean at the highest useful speed. This means you have to overbuild to the minimum wind speed.

Nearly always means sometimes never. This means you need conventional or nuclear to produce ALL that is needed some times.

It is rather elementary engineering that whoever chooses to build wind farms needs conventional/nuclear power plants whose capacity is the same as though there were no wind farms at all. It means those who choose to add wind power are producing generating capacity over and above the installed capacity of enough.

Given current costs it means after building sufficient regular capacity you choose to produce more expensive power from wind instead of from installed capacity.

It is a deliberate choice to pay more for electricity to no apparent benefit.

If one does not have backup power generation equal to full demand one chooses to do without electricity on the occasions when there is no wind. In the world's major blackouts people do seem to enjoy them for a while as there is a population spike nine months later. These have been on the order of hours. Weather patterns tend to run in 7 to 10 day cycles.

It is unclear just what benefit one is purchasing with this highly uneconomic approach to power generation.

It seems you do not know that by linking together many wind farms, we will always have enough running, since it is guaranteed that somewhere in New Zealand there will be wind strong enough to power enough turbines. The world doesn't call the capital "Windy Wellington" for nothing. We are possibly the windiest city in the world.
You know nothing of New Zealand's climate, mate. Unless you experience it first hand, you don't have a clue.

Nuclear fission can kiss my carbon negative ass. Could there be a more disgusting, dirty (perhaps apart from coal) and unsafe method to generate power? Look at Chernobyl, look at the British Magox reactors? I see Germany are phasing out nuclear fission.
Where exactly do you plan to store your waste now? Yucca Mountain was a failure.

And yet, for some reason, even though nearly 70% of our energy is generated by renewables, we pay 15.81 (US) c/kWh, compared with your average of (from 2003) of 12 (US) c/kWh with only 10% generated from renewables.

---

- Luke.

Nuclear fission can kiss my carbon negative ass. Could there be a more disgusting, dirty (perhaps apart from coal) and unsafe method to generate power? Look at Chernobyl, look at the British Magox reactors? I see Germany are phasing out nuclear fission.
Where exactly do you plan to store your waste now? Yucca Mountain was a failure.

Yuccca Mountain was not a failure. Harry Reid is in deep political trouble and it looks like he is not going to be reelected. Obama shut down funding to Yucca mountain in order to buy Harry Reid a few more votes. It's all political. Had funding not been shut off, they were very close to receiving their first shipments of waste.

---

if the locals didnt sue to prevent its opening. Locals in Nevada never wanted that in their underground. sadly we forget the waste creates heat even as it sits. heat that corrodes its casings and eventually will allow the radioactive material out.

---

In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

if the locals didnt sue to prevent its opening. Locals in Nevada never wanted that in their underground. sadly we forget the waste creates heat even as it sits. heat that corrodes its casings and eventually will allow the radioactive material out.

Yucca mountain was selected because storage would take place well above the water table and even if there was a leak, the material wouldn't be able to move far from the storage area. As for heat, that's created by short lived isotopes which burns out in the cooling ponds at the power plants. When the waste is generating that type of heat, it's unsafe to transport so they don't. They know far more about containing waste for the long term now days because they learned from the early programs for the atomic bomb where they were not very careful about waste storage.
The storage casks will have the air and water removed and filled with an inert gas so the only place corrosion can take place is on the outside.
On the other hand, what we should be pushing for is reprocessing instead of storage. The nasty stuff that requires long term storage can go right back into a reactor and be burned instead of stored.

---

So maybe it isn't humans after all ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100304/sc_nm/us_climate_methane
Methane bubbles in Arctic seas stir warming fears
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent – Thu Mar 4, 2:26 pm ET
OSLO (Reuters) – Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said.
It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries -- since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change.

There's also the vast tracts of Siberian and Canadian permafrost that are steadily releasing more of their trapped fossil methane as the world warms and the permafrost retreats ever further north. Additionally, there are very large volumes of frozen methane that are starting to be released as the oceans warm or as the ocean currents shift, as in your article. That is all called a "positive feedback" effect. As the world warms, more methane is released that then leads to yet more world warming... The point of no return for that effect is called a tipping point...

There is also a lot of fossil CO2 and methane in the peat bogs/forests of Indonesia that is being released by clearing and draining of the land there for inefficient farming. That significantly adds to the man-made greenhouse gas count.

Unfortunately, some of the Indonesian land clearance is to grow crops for hard cash from exporting for biofuel!


A lesser evil to buy a little time would be to capture the Arctic methane to burn and sequester the resultant CO2...

Regards,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Population explosion is probably partly to blame.

That and "consumerism".

How successful has China been at population control?

Would that be accepted by the rest of the world? Especially in such as Arab lands and Africa?


Whichever way you look at things, a continuing exponential increase (now on the scale of an explosion) in population and resource use is impossible to sustain. The question is merely what breaks first and when, and then how soon for the ensuing deep cataclysm.

If climate change is not to wipe (most of) us out, what else is there to moderate Mankind? And quickly enough?

Regards,
Martin

According to a show I watched last night it may be the shifting of the magnetic poles that slows us down. As the field weakens it allows more radiation? Didn't catch it all but looked interesting, they say it has happened many times in the past and would seem to maybe even explain evolution a bit...

---

Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!

So maybe it isn't humans after all ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100304/sc_nm/us_climate_methane
Methane bubbles in Arctic seas stir warming fears
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent – Thu Mar 4, 2:26 pm ET
OSLO (Reuters) – Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said.
It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries -- since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change.

Of course it's humans.
Climate deniers know climate change and global warming is manmade. They're just too scared to admit it. They just bury their heads in the sand. Because it might cost them money and will take effort.

Climate Deniers = Weaklings & Idiots.

---

- Luke.

Obviously you have never been to New Zealand.
We nearly always have wind here.

You do not appear to be reading for comprehension.

Nearly always does does not mean at the highest useful speed. This means you have to overbuild to the minimum wind speed.

Nearly always means sometimes never. This means you need conventional or nuclear to produce ALL that is needed some times.

It is rather elementary engineering that whoever chooses to build wind farms needs conventional/nuclear power plants whose capacity is the same as though there were no wind farms at all. It means those who choose to add wind power are producing generating capacity over and above the installed capacity of enough.

Given current costs it means after building sufficient regular capacity you choose to produce more expensive power from wind instead of from installed capacity.

It is a deliberate choice to pay more for electricity to no apparent benefit.

If one does not have backup power generation equal to full demand one chooses to do without electricity on the occasions when there is no wind. In the world's major blackouts people do seem to enjoy them for a while as there is a population spike nine months later. These have been on the order of hours. Weather patterns tend to run in 7 to 10 day cycles.

It is unclear just what benefit one is purchasing with this highly uneconomic approach to power generation.

It seems you do not know that by linking together many wind farms, we will always have enough running, since it is guaranteed that somewhere in New Zealand there will be wind strong enough to power enough turbines. The world doesn't call the capital "Windy Wellington" for nothing. We are possibly the windiest city in the world.
You know nothing of New Zealand's climate, mate. Unless you experience it first hand, you don't have a clue.

While your confidence in admirable it is unclear who makes good on the guarantee should it not be honored. That said, you are saying EVERY place in NZ considered big enough to be under that wind warranty needs enough capacity for ALL of NZ plus extra for transmission losses. Has anyone priced this? I appears to me if simplified to one of three regions will have enough for the entire country and given the practical efficiency of 35% one simply takes the total demand and multiplies by nine for installed capacity and then doubles that for transmission losses. Is this unreasonable?

But even if NZ has a refundable guarantee from the Maori wind god most countries have neither wind gods nor such winds.

Nuclear fission can kiss my carbon negative ass. Could there be a more disgusting, dirty (perhaps apart from coal) and unsafe method to generate power? Look at Chernobyl, look at the British Magox reactors? I see Germany are phasing out nuclear fission.
Where exactly do you plan to store your waste now? Yucca Mountain was a failure.

I have no knowledge of the politics in Germany. I am aware Japan and France have 80% of their electricity from nuclear with no plans to phase it out. Although I am not sure about the French the Japanese are not glowing in the dark. China is switching to nuclear as rapidly as feasible as they do not consider it a good idea to continue opening a new coal plant every three days.

Dealing with waste is no more than a legal matter as long as the Jane Fonda School of Nuclear Physics can continue to afford to hire lawyers.

And yet, for some reason, even though nearly 70% of our energy is generated by renewables, we pay 15.81 (US) c/kWh, compared with your average of (from 2003) of 12 (US) c/kWh with only 10% generated from renewables.

Renewable is not wind.

As to cost, such comparisons can be done within a country but not between countries due to tax laws, subsidies and a myriad of other variables.

So if you have a wind only cost which you can compare to other sources I have no problem with continuing this exchange.

I am not trying to hedge here. In the US Florida is not in the best part of the country to generate solar power due to cloud cover and daily rains about six months of the year. The most economical place is the southeast due to users being closest to sources. The southwest arid regions are popular but transmission losses are a major factor are the economic locations are far from users.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

A century ago the question arose, how do greenhouses work? Why are they warm? The common conjecture, considering the recently discovered infrared light was the glass trapped the heat. I simple experiment was conducted with a small greenhouse. One used glass which is opaque to long-wave IR. The other used sheets of salt which is transparent to it. The temperature inside both was essentially the same.

Greenhouses work because the sun heats objects inside it. Those objects heat the air and the house, regardless of construction materials, prevents the warm air from going away by convection.

Should anyone doubt this, observe how a greenhouse is kept from overheating. Air is vented. Sheets of glass are not removed. Look at any home project for small "greenhouses" and find sheet plastic works as well.

It is unclear how any gas can act as a "greenhouse" as the air simply convects away. At the same time the atmosphere would start to warm up it would also expand and increase it radiating surface maintaining equilibrium temperature.

It is unclear how a trivially small quantity of these misnamed "greenhouse" gases can decrease the mean free path sufficient to measurably slow the radiation of IR photons into space.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

So maybe it isn't humans after all ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100304/sc_nm/us_climate_methane
Methane bubbles in Arctic seas stir warming fears
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent – Thu Mar 4, 2:26 pm ET
OSLO (Reuters) – Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said.
It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries -- since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change.

Of course it's humans.

100%? 99%? 98%? ... 03%? 02% 01%
You don't know and neither does anyone else.

If you don't know how much, then you don't know how much needs to be cut.

Climate deniers know climate change and global warming is manmade. They're just too scared to admit it. They just bury their heads in the sand. Because it might cost them money and will take effort.

Climate Deniers = Weaklings & Idiots.

What the climate changers refuse to acknowledge is, if it is 100% human caused then the only way to reduce the problem is global thermonuclear war and make sure the most advanced countries have no one left. Reduce the human population by 80% and shove tech back into the stone age. And that may be the real reason we haven't found ET.

Only idiots say there isn't change.
Only idiots say is it 100% human caused.
Only weaklings refuse to say what their position means.
Fools try and set policy with 100% error bars.

Doesn't mean we don't reduce, we should on general principal, but we need real data and when huge natural sources are missed, we should have >1% confidence in the projections. If something that big has been missed, what else has been missed?

So the real question is, are you sure enough of the data that you are willing to bet 5/6 of the human population on it?

---

What the climate changers refuse to acknowledge is, if it is 100% human caused then the only way to reduce the problem is global thermonuclear war and make sure the most advanced countries have no one left. Reduce the human population by 80% and shove tech back into the stone age. And that may be the real reason we haven't found ET.

Only idiots say there isn't change.
Only idiots say is it 100% human caused.
Only weaklings refuse to say what their position means.
Fools try and set policy with 100% error bars.

Doesn't mean we don't reduce, we should on general principal, but we need real data and when huge natural sources are missed, we should have >1% confidence in the projections. If something that big has been missed, what else has been missed?

Nope. Nature will do that for us. Wars, Disease, Poverty will set the human population right. It costs money for people to 'do good' and build green roofs, install CO2 limiting scrubbers. Money the rich don't want to stump up, because they just want to get richer. So, they bury their heads in the sand and use their positions to lobby anti-climate change.

So the real question is, are you sure enough of the data that you are willing to bet 5/6 of the human population on it?

Yep. Count me in.

---

- Luke.

So maybe it isn't humans after all ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100304/sc_nm/us_climate_methane
Methane bubbles in Arctic seas stir warming fears
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent – Thu Mar 4, 2:26 pm ET
OSLO (Reuters) – Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said.
It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries -- since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change.

Of course it's humans.
Climate deniers know climate change and global warming is manmade. They're just too scared to admit it. They just bury their heads in the sand. Because it might cost them money and will take effort.

As the Alpine glaciers melt archaeologists are finding pristine artefacts nearly a thousand years old such as the remains of houses, fences and home implements being uncovered. How is this possible?

Climate Deniers = Weaklings & Idiots.

Rather building homes and raising cattle under glaciers requires the strength of heroes. Or perhaps the glaciers were not there a thousand years ago. Perhaps one day will retreat sufficient that the ice tunnel used by Hannibal to get elephants across the Alps will be revealed. It could not be there was an ice free path back then. That would make Hannibal a weakling and a melter.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

As the Alpine glaciers melt archaeologists are finding pristine artefacts nearly a thousand years old such as the remains of houses, fences and home implements being uncovered. How is this possible?

Nothing is static, Matt. Objects can move between places. Wind, Rain, Water all plays its part.
Also, how can I trust you if you spell 'artifacts' wrong?

Rather building homes and raising cattle under glaciers requires the strength of heroes. Or perhaps the glaciers were not there a thousand years ago. Perhaps one day will retreat sufficient that the ice tunnel used by Hannibal to get elephants across the Alps will be revealed. It could not be there was an ice free path back then. That would make Hannibal a weakling and a melter.

Or I could sell you a house next to a beach for $1, minimum staying period 100 years?

---

- Luke.

Nothing is static, Matt. Objects can move between places. Wind, Rain, Water all plays it's part.

Climate is also not static. Around 1000 years ago we had the medieval warming period when it was much warmer than it is today. It was so warm that wine could be produced in southern England. About 400 years ago we were in the little ice age and it was much cooler than it is today. The little ice age cooled things down so much that we are still warming from it.
Thats why skeptic don't deny that there is warming. The question is how much if any of the warming is due to CO2. It currently looks like additional CO2 will result in very little if any warming.

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I'm a sceptic of the sceptics. its really hard to imagine that suddenly when Humans started their industrial revolution and increased the CO2 levels. As humans increased their use of Fossil fuels the CO2 increase and so did the rise in avearge temperatures. Coincidence? that's way to convenient of an answer.

---

In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I'm a sceptic of the sceptics. its really hard to imagine that suddenly when Humans started their industrial revolution and increased the CO2 levels. As humans increased their use of Fossil fuels the CO2 increase and so did the rise in avearge temperatures. Coincidence? that's way to convenient of an answer.

If there were a basis in fact for such statements you would have a point.

The true believers have yet to explain why temperatures decreased from 1940 to 1975. It would be good if they would also explain why it was so terrible that in the late 1990s the temperatures returned to the melting levels of 1940.

It would also be good for them to explain why CO2 increased after temperature increases in the past but first they must explain what caused those temperature increases.

And just what is wrong with Britain having a tropical climate? I bought the palm tree franchise for the Washington DC area decades ago and I still don't have a market. When does the calamity of lush tropical climate worldwide befall us again?

Will true believers ever divorce themselves of the nonsensical, medieval idea that this must be the best of all possible worlds? Excuse me. The correct statement should be, the best of all possible global climates existed at midnight on January 1, 1750. Anyone not liking that date is free to propose and defend their choice of dates. Choosing a different date would appear to be a waster of time as there was no change at all in the world's climate prior to industrialization despite any evidence to the contrary.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult