Climate Change, 'Greenhouse' effects, Environment, etc part III

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Reed Young

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Message 1320888 - Posted: 28 Dec 2012, 18:27:13 UTC - in response to Message 1320666.  

Today the government forces the utility to buy the power they generate at the same rate as the utility sells you power. But the utility buys is much cheaper from a hydroelectric dam. So that 0.5Mwh shortage is picked up several times over by a government subsidy.

Big deal. In exchange, the utility continues to enjoy a local or regional monopoly. This is a good deal for the utility. Know how you can tell? They're taking the deal, all over the country.
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Message 1321107 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 3:43:59 UTC - in response to Message 1320885.  

Different reputable studies using different methodologies arrive at different numbers, but they all show that solar PV is cleaner, including the CO2 used to manufacture the panels.

So glad you read and understood your link ...

I did. You didn't.

I see now you changed the question being asked. Nice slight of hand. I'll give you a point for your underhanded trickery. Now do you have a cite for the original question?

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Message 1321136 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 5:15:11 UTC
Last modified: 29 Dec 2012, 5:16:56 UTC

I see nobody has made a comment about nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) that I brought up earlier.

So from the Wiki for nitrogen trifluoride greenhouse gas.

Applications

Today nitrogen trifluoride is predominantly employed in the cleaning of the PECVD chambers in the high volume production of liquid crystal displays and silicon-based thin film solar cells.


Greenhouse gas

NF3 is a greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential (GWP) 17,200 times greater than that of CO2 when compared over a 100 year period


One of the reasons that is used it is NOT on the list of Kyoto-recognised greenhouse gases. If it was it would be 2nd on the list of worse greenhouse gases.
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Message 1321140 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 5:21:57 UTC - in response to Message 1312759.  

I think we have a very long way to go before alternative power becomes really viable.

Batteries are really horrible things, either filled with strong acid or alkalides, and made of metals we would rather not use. And they don't have a long life.

Charging and discharging batteries is at best only 70% efficient in both directions. Use them roughly by fast charging and/or discharging quickly causes overheating and decrease of life. They also do not like to be cold either. How well does your car start with a three year old battery on a winters morning in Michigan?

Voltaic cells also need chemicals that are either dangerous or in short supply or both. They have only just got past the point were they generate more power over their lifetime than it took to produce them, and then only when used in reasonably sunny places.

Wind power is usually generated miles from where it is needed. Quite often when they produce most of their power we don't need it, like at night.
In the UK we have had news items where the controllers have had to tell the wind power farms in Scotland to switch off because they are supplying too much power, and then had to compensate them with £millions.

When we do need their power because of bad weather etc. they get turned off because the wind is too strong.
They are also not as efficient as they would have you believe, because although they can produce the power quoted in isolation where frequency is not too important. But as soon as they are connected to the grid keeping the frequency absolutely correct and in phase is the most important thing, by a long way.

I believe.
But you shall surely diss me. That our government has posession of pure power simple solutions that we might never know. They cannot let the populace know, or billions of dollars in their control would be lost.

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

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Message 1321152 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 6:16:52 UTC - in response to Message 1321107.  

Different reputable studies using different methodologies arrive at different numbers, but they all show that solar PV is cleaner, including the CO2 used to manufacture the panels.

So glad you read and understood your link ...

I did. You didn't.

I see now you changed the question being asked. Nice slight of hand. I'll give you a point for your underhanded trickery. Now do you have a cite for the original question?

I think it's perfectly clear that solar photovoltaic cells are cleaner than the average mix used in utility power around the United States. Your WAG #s are made up and willfully dishonest and everybody knows it. Exactly what "original question" do you still consider unanswered?
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Message 1321166 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 6:38:25 UTC - in response to Message 1321136.  

I see nobody has made a comment about nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) that I brought up earlier.

So from the Wiki for nitrogen trifluoride greenhouse gas.

That same article would have already told you why it isn't as important as you seem to believe, if you had just read and comprehended it.

1. "Elemental fluorine has been introduced as an environmentally friendly replacement for nitrogen trifluoride in the manufacture of flat panel displays and thin film solar cells.[3]"

2. "NF3 is a greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential (GWP) 17,200 times greater than that of CO2 when compared over a 100 year period.[8][9][10]... Since 1992, when less than 100 tons were produced, production has grown to an estimated 4000 tons in 2007 and is projected to increase significantly.[11] World production of NF3 is expected to reach 8000 tons a year by 2010."

So simply multiply the 2010 estimate by 17,200 for an estimate of how much annual NF3 emissions are warming the Earth compared to CO2.

17,200*8000 = 137,600,000 (CO2-eq tons of NF3)

Relative to numbers normal people normally work with, 137.6 million seems quite a lot. But it's much less than 8738 million, which is the number of tons of CO2 emitted in 2009.

Even though NF3 is a more potent greenhouse gas pound-for-pound, so many fewer pounds of it are emitted per year that it just doesn't matter.

3. "Instead, the contribution of the nitrogen trifluoride to the CO2-budget of thin film solar cell production is compensated already within a few months by the CO2 saving potential of the PV technology.[17]"
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Message 1321213 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 10:11:48 UTC - in response to Message 1321166.  

used in production also does NOT necessarily mean released unchanged into the atmosphere.
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Message 1321239 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 11:47:37 UTC - in response to Message 1321213.  

used in production also does NOT necessarily mean released unchanged into the atmosphere.

Like the amount of mercury in 'environmentally pleasant' flourescent lightbulbs won't ever come back to haunt us?

Gawd, soft^one. Just once in a while, your head is so buried in the sand I wonder if it shall ever see daylight again.

The production of LED lightbulbs? I dunno yet, what's your take on THAT? The next wave.

BTW, there IS no 'greenhouse effect'. The minor effect, if any, of what man is doing today is swamped by what the planet has been doing on it's own for millions of years, and we are not going to sway it one way or the other by one iota. It's just politics and the transfer of MONEY.
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Message 1321255 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 13:17:08 UTC - in response to Message 1320794.  

... Unfortunately yet more unfortunate, the time when enough obvious disasters have enraged enough people to force a positive and rapid shift in policies is likely to be rather too late to avoid continued expensive calamities...

Just one comparison: The estimated costs of recent severe weather events likely could fund us all going all green now and all with merely the presently available technology...

And perversely, we are encouraging our own fossil fuelled demise:


http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/

... How much money does the U.S. government give oil, gas and coal companies?

In the United States, credible estimates of annual fossil fuel subsidies range from $10 billion to $52 billion annually, while even efforts to remove small portions of those subsidies have been defeated in Congress...



OECD Fossil Fuel Subsidies (recent press releases)

... The work on fossil fuel subsidies by the international organisations was in response to a request by G-20 Leaders when they met in Pittsburgh in September 2009. At that time, leaders agreed to “rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption”. ...


Fossil-Fuel Subsidies of Rich Nations Five Times Climate Aid

... In 2011, 22 industrialized nations paid $58.7 billion in subsidies to the oil, coal and gas industries and to consumers of the fuels, compared with climate-aid flows of $11.2 billion...


And that as compared to the cost of going green...?

And what of the full cost and consequences of all the pollution?


All on our only planet,
Martin

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Message 1321256 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 13:17:30 UTC - in response to Message 1321239.  

Mark, a great many chemical reactions occur in the production of solar cells. What goes in is not what goes out most of the time.

As far as we are having no effect, that is what the pundits would have you believe, the science shows otherwise. If you have any evidence from a reputable source to the contrary, please share it with us.

Scientific evidence only please.
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Message 1321260 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 13:23:32 UTC - in response to Message 1321239.  
Last modified: 29 Dec 2012, 13:24:51 UTC

... BTW, there IS no 'greenhouse effect'. The minor effect, if any, of what man is doing today is swamped by what the planet has been doing on it's own for millions of years, and we are not going to sway it one way or the other by one iota. It's just politics and the transfer of MONEY.

Good on the conspiracy theory there. Unfortunately, you are spot on for the games of corporate corruption and lobbying.

However, you seem to be blind to the effects of two centuries of industrial might. We are radically changing our planet on an industrial scale. Just look around you. Where you live is very different to what was there just a few hundred years before.

And further afield there are many examples. How long did the buffalo survive just a handful of settlers for just one example?...


Our atmosphere is an amazingly thin shell around our planet. You skim near space on an everyday jet airliner...

All on our only one small planet,
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Message 1321297 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 14:58:59 UTC - in response to Message 1321166.  

It would seem some of you think I am not a supporter of green technologies. I can assure you that I am.

But I do not think it is yet time to start a headlong rush into solar panels. If you read the Bloomberg report I linked, that doesn't also.

The Chinese where anything goes, including unsafe use of toxic chemicals, have virtually closed down all production of solar cells in the US and EU. Where there might have been some chance of clean energy producing them.

China, and I did some work on contact for Joy Mining, is using coal at an enormous rate. From its own unsafe mines and buying as much as it can from Australia. Joy Mining is talking of opening a second mining equipment factory in China.

So my thoughts are unless you install them in the SW of the US, southerm Europe or similar sunny places don't expect to to see the energy gains they say are possible, and they are not as green as you are lead to believe.
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Message 1321380 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 17:13:18 UTC - in response to Message 1321297.  

First off I ALWAYS recommend people do their homework. I also stand firmly against people spouting nonsense. I do not think anyone here stated that
thin film solar Photo-electric are the complete and total answer. For many in home use they are an excellent investment as well as seriously helping the situation. For large scale warm climate solar, reflective concentrated thermal solar panels are much more cost effective. Win installations where practical are THE cheapest addition to electric grids. Tide energy is very useful in some locations, as is wave energy. Some (not all) think additional nuclear installations are a good idea.

But the fact that if we keep digging up and burning fossil fuels we are conducting an EXTREMELY dangerous experiment with the worlds environment should
not be minimalized and trivialized. We have alternatives and we NEED to start putting them to work. There MIGHT still be enough time. Just maybe.
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Message 1321601 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 20:17:22 UTC - in response to Message 1321380.  

Although nuclear plants seem less bad to me than coal plants, neither are necessary.
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Message 1321707 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 22:09:37 UTC

The climate has been getting warmer since 1850 when the little ice age ended,

whether man has had an impact or not. So arguing whether or not man did this is

e relevant. The question is should we do something about it now? The simplest

solution would be to make clouds to reflect sun light before it hits the ground

and is re emitted as infrared or heat energy. In the short term this is

problematic in that the largest super computers would have to be 100 to 1000

times larger to begin to be large enough to do weather prediction without

changing the models with artificial clouds. So we almost can fix it if we have

to just not yet.

solar only work close to its end use and only if you can afford significant

loss, so for a home yes for a major industry not yet.

As for wind power for us to extract the level of power the us uses and will

use you would have to put up so many of them that, that this would effect weather were it could be done,which is by no means every were.

As to tidal and wave power there is enough to meat the needs of the US but only

if deployed on a massive scale then we are back to changing the environment and

weather.

Nuclear only makes since because we have already do most of the work and we

have a huge waste problem. The best number have been able to get for this is

about 7 million metric tons now and projected to be 14 to 20 million by 2020

Phase three nuclear the kind we know in the US was primarily designed to

enrich plutonium for bomb's and only use's up about 2% of the power in the fuel

rod's. Phase 4 reactors extract an additional 97.7% and in the process convert

almost all of the nasty long lived radioactive to either fuel or short lived

one's. bear in mind the current plan is to store high level waste a yucca

mountain at 750 degree's for a minimum of 20,000 years without leaking.

the waste from phase 4 would be no more radioactive at the end of 200 year's,

than uranium our and would generate almost no heat. Then maybe yucca mountain

makes since.






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Message 1321765 - Posted: 29 Dec 2012, 22:43:03 UTC - in response to Message 1321707.  

Too many opinions and crackpot plans, not enough facts and not one reliable source.
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Message 1321841 - Posted: 30 Dec 2012, 0:07:49 UTC - in response to Message 1321765.  

Too many opinions and crackpot plans, not enough facts and not one reliable source.

--------------------------------------------------------
To true but the point is to put your opinion forward

answer any questions you can and hope others will not

take you at your word and go out and look.

bringing back what they have learned and so on.

with this kind of discourse everybody learns and some

consensus can be reached and plans can be moved forward.

For myself I thing we are 5 to 7 years away from the computational

power to do real climate modeling even with (climateprodition.net)

to start monkeying with planetary climate control.

But that will be there soon if we need it.

burning petroleum because it is cheap energy is silly if it is not cheap.

wind and solar have their place but in the 100 terra watt range we will soon

need you start screwing with global weather again.

same for tidal or wave power It can work but would be massive to meat demand.

We need to rethink how the UNITED STATES does business,the out come

of this could be the forming of entire new industry's millions of jobs

and the envy of the world if we so choose.


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Message 1321861 - Posted: 30 Dec 2012, 0:35:38 UTC - in response to Message 1321707.  

You call that simple?
The simplest

solution would be to make clouds to reflect sun light before it hits the ground

and is re emitted as infrared or heat energy.

How would you do that, and how do you conclude that's the "simplest solution"?
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Message 1321972 - Posted: 30 Dec 2012, 6:54:06 UTC - in response to Message 1321861.  

In the time I have been on this planet the two main scenarios for its end have been "Global Warming" and "Nuclear Winter". The latter being caused by either an actual nuclear war or a super volcano blowing its top with atmospheric particles produced blocking the sunlight from the Earth's surface producing massive global cooling.

Therefore, if the technology could be developed there is no reason why artificial clouds could not be used to control global temperature. What has to be considered using this method is the effect it would have on solar farms. A massive band of artificial clouds would cut their output considerably.

My own feelings on the matter of "alternative energy" is that wind and solar are just "feel good" solutions suitable only for small scale power production. At 10 acres per Megawatt, the physical size of solar power stations becomes an environmental issue in itself. Wind farms sound good but the turbines can only operate over a limited range of wind speeds. No wind equals no output and at wind speeds of more than 40kph they have to be shut down so the turbines do not spin themselves to destruction.

I used to work on the Eyre Peninsular at the bottom of South Australia. Down there, just about every suitable mountain top has a wind farm on it. Yet every time I drove past one, at most, only one or two of the turbines would be operating. These windfarms had cost millions of dollars to construct, the owners were government subsidised, yet almost no use was being made of them. Why ?

In the 1960's there was a Science Fiction story published called "The Subways of Kazoo". In this story it was found that a dead civilisation had produced power by building wind farms where the generators used a bow string that vibrated in the wind to drive a piezo crystal. Maybe this is an option that could be explored ?

I believe in "Alternative Energy" but I feel that the present concentration on wind and solar is counter productive. They have their uses but are not the answer.

T.A.
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Message 1322063 - Posted: 30 Dec 2012, 10:23:32 UTC - in response to Message 1321972.  

[quote]
My own feelings on the matter of "alternative energy" is that wind and solar are just "feel good" solutions suitable only for small scale power production. At 10 acres per Megawatt, the physical size of solar power stations becomes an environmental issue in itself. Wind farms sound good but the turbines can only operate over a limited range of wind speeds. No wind equals no output and at wind speeds of more than 40kph they have to be shut down so the turbines do not spin themselves to destruction.
[/url]

This is the type of bad information that the alternative energy field is constantly being bombarded with.

http://www.affordable-solar.com/store/solar-panels/CSI-CS6P-245P-245W-Solar-Panel-STD-Frame#datasheets-lnk I show these fairly randomly selected panels (NOT the most efficient on the market) to be rated at over 600KW per acre. This would be less than 2 acres per MW.

An area off 100 miles square (10,000 square miles) can produce more electricity than the USA currently uses. This would be about the size of.. oh an old nuclear test site.
Janice
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Message boards : Politics : Climate Change, 'Greenhouse' effects, Environment, etc part III


 
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