Ridiculous.

Charging and discharging batteries is at best only 70% efficient in both directions.

That's better than the internal combustion engine's theoretical maximum of 50%, and batteries are much, much better in practice than the internal combustion engine's actual efficiency. :^D

Are you proposing to run the world on AA batteries? Or have you forgotten it takes an engine to charge a battery?

It takes electricity to charge a battery, not necessarily an engine. Wow.

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Ridiculous.

Charging and discharging batteries is at best only 70% efficient in both directions.

That's better than the internal combustion engine's theoretical maximum of 50%, and batteries are much, much better in practice than the internal combustion engine's actual efficiency. :^D

Are you proposing to run the world on AA batteries? Or have you forgotten it takes an engine to charge a battery?

It takes electricity to charge a battery, not necessarily an engine. Wow.

To be fair most electricity is generated by some kind of fossil fuel engine.

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[/quote]

Old James

FALSE:

There isn't a battery operated car out there that get over 100 miles a charge.

FACT:

Model S has three battery options.
The largest battery supplies 300 MILES OF RANGE at 55 MPH.

(And don't forget that the Chevy Volt's 40 mile all-electric range is equal to or more than ~80% of all daily commutes in the United States.)
FUD:

Cost is the only factor.

FACT: Technologies always cost more when they're new.
ANOTHER FACT: Electric motors require far less maintenance even than diesel engines. Total costs of ownership of electric cars and gasoline cars are already much closer than initial purchase price.

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FALSE:

There isn't a battery operated car out there that get over 100 miles a charge.

FACT:

Model S has three battery options.
The largest battery supplies 300 MILES OF RANGE at 55 MPH.

(And don't forget that the Chevy Volt's 40 mile all-electric range is equal to or more than ~80% of all daily commutes in the United States.)
FUD:

Cost is the only factor.

FACT: Technologies always cost more when they're new.
ANOTHER FACT: Electric motors require far less maintenance even than diesel engines. Total costs of ownership of electric cars and gasoline cars are already much closer than initial purchase price.

Is that 40 miles one way or round trip? I ask because I dont think many employers would let you charge your car off of thier dime.

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[/quote]

Old James

Ridiculous.

Charging and discharging batteries is at best only 70% efficient in both directions.

That's better than the internal combustion engine's theoretical maximum of 50%, and batteries are much, much better in practice than the internal combustion engine's actual efficiency. :^D

Are you proposing to run the world on AA batteries? Or have you forgotten it takes an engine to charge a battery?

It takes electricity to charge a battery, not necessarily an engine. Wow.

To be fair most electricity is generated by some kind of fossil fuel engine.

To be fair that is incorrect.

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Janice

And to be fair that is for PG&E only. I added up that pie chart for fossil fuel use. Came out to 21.8% But then I see the unspecified sources at 22.9% what is that? Also in the eligible renewal catagory at 15%, 26.6% of that is bio and waste. If you burn it it is fossil fuel.

Now how about the mid west where they have those big coal fired plants? Or natural gas.

Here in NY we are lucky we have hydro and Nuke power. But we also have coal and natural gas plants. I dont like my power bill now let alone plugging a car in every damn day.

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[/quote]

Old James

Might I suggest going to your local utility website and trying to find the same information.

Bio waste is "renewable". It is basically sewage or garbage, from renewable sources and carbon neutral.

This is not FOSSIL fuel.

I would presume Unspecified is from out of state sources and they do not have specific numbers on it. So electricity from Oregon/Washington would be primarily hydro/nuclear, and from nevada most likely nuclear/solar/hydro.

But certainly saying it is primarily fossil is FALSE.

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Janice

Ridiculous.

Charging and discharging batteries is at best only 70% efficient in both directions.

That's better than the internal combustion engine's theoretical maximum of 50%, and batteries are much, much better in practice than the internal combustion engine's actual efficiency. :^D

Are you proposing to run the world on AA batteries? Or have you forgotten it takes an engine to charge a battery?

It takes electricity to charge a battery, not necessarily an engine. Wow.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but even the sun is an engine. May not use a 4 stroke piston in cylinder method, but still an engine. And even a turbine to extract power from flowing water or air is an engine. The definition of engine is much broader than the thing in a car.

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Bio waste is "renewable". It is basically sewage or garbage, from renewable sources and carbon neutral.

This is not FOSSIL fuel.

Brilliant. So garbage which requires the extraction of fossil fuel to make because the fossil fuel (oil) is incorporated into the garbage is a renewable source. Never mind the transportation of this garbage or the energy needed to originally make it, or the transportation of the workers to the plants that make it, we will just call it renewable and the world is fine. Brilliant. I just love the thinking of people who just want to feel good, wave their arms and say "make it so". No wonder people refuse to understand the actual situation we find ourselves in, if the models are correct.

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You two beating each other up isnt solving anything. How about some ideas instaed of bashing each others belife about global warming.

Do you both think that we need to get off fossil fuels in the long run?

Here are my ideas. Where there is an abundance of water use hydro electric. There is a tide twice a day. start using that tide to generate power, It seems the Thames river would be ideal for that. You have those storm gates, Why not upstream use something similar to use the tide for electricty, Same for any coastal city that has tides.

Where its is windy use wind farms. Where it is sunny solar power generation.

And we need safe cheap nuclear power. What soured the US on nuke power was every stinking plant was its own design plus the fact that every dfay design changes were mandated which pushed back completeion times.

Dont forget that you have the NIMBY types who dont want it where they live.


There are some what I call sci fi solutions. Such as Solar colectors in orbit beaming back power as microwaves, And the big mirror hitting a collector and using it for steam power. And the fusion reactor which I think is a pipe dream.

Feel free to debate these ides on there own merits, Not beacuse you call each other PHUDS

You should remove the thread. Just to be fair...

...just sayin.

Record high levels of pack ice at the poles this year.

Them Polar Bears wont drown this year

!

Lovin it! LOL!

Ridiculous.

Charging and discharging batteries is at best only 70% efficient in both directions.

That's better than the internal combustion engine's theoretical maximum of 50%, and batteries are much, much better in practice than the internal combustion engine's actual efficiency. :^D

Are you proposing to run the world on AA batteries? Or have you forgotten it takes an engine to charge a battery?

It takes electricity to charge a battery, not necessarily an engine. Wow.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but even the sun is an engine. May not use a 4 stroke piston in cylinder method, but still an engine. And even a turbine to extract power from flowing water or air is an engine. The definition of engine is much broader than the thing in a car.

I'm familiar with that usage, but then, what was the point of stating the obvious fact that "it takes an engine to charge a battery?" Using "engine" in that broad way, "it takes an engine to charge a battery" becomes batteries can be charged by the Sun or wind. I agree, and that's practical, feasible, zero-pollution, and a significant part of the solution to the global energy problem.

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Hate mail. Flaming.

Is that 40 miles one way or round trip? I ask because I dont think many employers would let you charge your car off of thier dime.

That's round trip. About 80% of commuters live within 20 miles of where they work, many within just a few miles, so whether their "employers would let you charge your car off of thier dime" isn't even an issue for the vast majority of people. I'm sure we all agree, 80% of auto commuters emitting zero pollution would be a huge step in the right direction. Anybody with a longer commute could put some gas in a Chevy Volt, or find a true all-electric vehicle with sufficient range (more battery, no gas tank). Based on the Tesla Model S range of 300 miles per charge on an 85kW battery (driving 55mph with ideal conditions the entire time), on a full charge the 80kW battery in the Nissan Leaf should be able to comfortably take it 100 miles each way without needing to recharge. Maybe a bit more, but who wants to commute more than 100 miles anyway?

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I challenge that assertion.

Voltaic cells... have only just got past the point were they generate more power over their lifetime than it took to produce them...

Do you have a source for that claim?

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Bio waste is "renewable". It is basically sewage or garbage, from renewable sources and carbon neutral.

This is not FOSSIL fuel.

Brilliant. So garbage which requires the extraction of fossil fuel to make because the fossil fuel (oil) is incorporated into the garbage is a renewable source. Never mind the transportation of this garbage or the energy needed to originally make it, or the transportation of the workers to the plants that make it, we will just call it renewable and the world is fine. Brilliant. I just love the thinking of people who just want to feel good, wave their arms and say "make it so". No wonder people refuse to understand the actual situation we find ourselves in, if the models are correct.

Until we stop making garbage(and this board is an excellent indication we will not) it is not only a renewable, but a renewed source. Shall we haul it a bit further to dump in our rivers/lakes and oceans? Shall we land fill it and let produce untaped methane to be released constantly?

I am trying to understand the attempted bait and switches.. You said it is a "fossil fuel". I said it is not. Now you are suggesting in a round about way that some fossil fuels may have been used to produce it in the first place.
This is really reaching and seems awfully desperate. Please show some respect
for those that read this drivel??

Is it a perfect fuel? Of course not. But to suggest it is the same as digging dinosaur remains up from millions of years ago is simply not true. And before it was being used as a sizable slice of our energy mix the question was "well where are we going to dump it?"

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Janice

Ridiculous.

If you burn it it is fossil fuel.

We only call it "fossil fuel" if it hasn't been biomass for millions of years. "How renewable are biofuels, really?" is a legitimate question, and they indisputably put CO2 in the atmosphere. But they are also indisputably not the same thing as fossil fuels.

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Oops. I used the wrong units for the Nissan Leaf's battery. That should be 80kWh, and 85kWh for the longest-lasting battery available in the Tesla Model S, not kW, but you knew that already. ;^)

Plastic "most commonly derived from petrochemicals." A lot ends up as garbage. It is fossil oil. Fuel, well, I suppose it wasn't burned so you get a half point.

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http://www.livescience.com/25793-changing-environment-human-evolution.html

Erratic Environment May Be Key to Human Evolution

At Olduvai Gorge, where excavations helped to confirm Africa was the cradle of humanity, scientists now find the landscape once fluctuated rapidly, likely guiding early human evolution.These findings suggest that key mental developments within the human lineage may have been linked with a highly variable environment, researchers added.

To learn more about the roots of humanity, scientists analyzed samples of leaf waxes preserved in lake sediments at Olduvai Gorge, identifying which plants dominated the local environment around 2 million years ago. This was about when Homo erectus, a direct ancestor of modern humans who used relatively advanced stone tools, appeared.

Scientists had long thought Africa went through a period of gradually increasing dryness — called the Great Drying — over 3 million years, or perhaps one big change in climate that favored the expansion of grasslands across the continent, influencing human evolution. However, the new research instead revealed "strong evidence for dramatic ecosystem changes across the African savanna, in which open grassland landscapes transitioned to closed forests over just hundreds to several thousands of years," researcher Clayton Magill, a biogeochemist at Pennsylvania State University, told LiveScience.

"I was surprised by the magnitude of changes and the rapid pace of the changes we found," Freeman told LiveScience. "There was a complete restructuring of the ecosystem from grassland to forest and back again, at least based on how we interpret the data. I've worked on carbon isotopes my whole career, and I've never seen anything like this before."

The team also found links between changes at Olduvai Gorge and sea-surface temperatures in the tropics.

"Early humans went from having trees available to having only grasses available in just 10 to 100 generations, and their diets would have had to change in response," Magill said in a statement. "Changes in food availability, food type, or the way you get food can trigger evolutionary mechanisms to deal with those changes. The result can be increased brain size and cognition, changes in locomotion and even social changes — how you interact with others in a group."

This variability in the environment coincided with a key period in human evolution, "when the genus Homo was first established and when there was first evidence of tool use," Magill said.

Is it counterproductive to humans on a long term basis to attempt to stop global warming?



@Martin, no where does this post take a position for or against the reality or falisity of global warming or its possible causes. If you attack it on that basis you are a fool. A valid question to ask is are the models being used today able to predict the rapid climate changes observed there in the past. The answer is important if you realize that to stop warming we must deny industrialization to over 75% of the worlds population of humans, something not to be taken lightly. China's explosive CO2 growth showing that it is impossible to industrialize and control with technology we have today, so denial becomes the only option.

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