Non-renewable energy

[Simon CollierParticipant @simoncollier74340]

Interesting about the naval ship data Martin but I wonder if they used Stevenson screens, and anyway, I was referring to continental land masses.

We in NSW are presently enduring an unprecedented (that word again) heat wave in what officially is still spring until 1st December. Sydney and most of the state had 40+ degrees yesterday, overnight min of 29-30, and 40 odd today. A cooling Southerly change is due this evening. Summers have got hotter in my lifetime and winters milder, that is certain whatever the drivers.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

posts

I opened this thread simply stating an inconvenient fact which few understand , politicians especially,that no matter if we install three times more wind turbines , they produce near to no electricity in times of static high pressure over the UK.

No you did not. You actually simply wrote:

Today now.

Coal 7% Wind 1.7%

Other stuff red-lining to get to 39GW

Don't switch your kettles on all at once.

 

Not quite the same? Do think, and understand, that high pressure over the UK likely means there is ‘low pressure’ somewhere else around the globe. Energy can be moved around the planet (think tankers for oil and natural gas/LPG, etc). Think international electrical transfers like those in current use between European and other countries.

Clearly to all, I would hope, that (not mentioned in your initial thread) there is no solar gain during the hours of darkness (although some have claimed to get some photovolyaic-derived electrical energy at night under certain conditions). That is no different than the simple fact that wind is not always copiously available – except that it is decidedly more predictable.

However, with multiples of excess energy converters (turbines/ solar panels, solar concentators, etc there is absolutely no reason why a couple of weeks (or more) of stored energy could not be accumulated during periods of glut.

At present, not much better than a 70% conversion rate, energy surplus to immediate needs, harvested from free sunlight (solar, wind and hydro are very much dependent on our star as the primary energy source), could easily be converted to hydrogen and stored (exhausted natural gas wells used to hold years of gas supply and we clearly currently store natural gas before use). Or it could be liquified (like in the tankers that currently transport it around the planet) or stored as other commodities (liquid ammonia is just one possibility).

Voila! An energy store that could then be used for power generation? Burning, without using fossil fuels. Clearly not as cheap as raping the planet of its natural resources (as we humans are doing at present) but a viable alternative. One really just need to open our eyes to the possibilities of turning on our kettles (not all at once, as that could overload the power generation side – like half time during world cup football match finals) without burning fossil fuels.

Do go away and think positive for once. Think which, in the long run, might be better for the human race – using up all the planet’s natural resources of oil, coal and gas (while further polluting the atmosphere we breathe) or using the renewable energy from our Star (that will run out at some time in the distant future, of course) which is far, far in excess of human-kind’s daily needs. Just think about the possibilities for the future….

Edited By not done it yet on 29/11/2020 07:36:07

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 28/11/2020 19:26:05:

The argument will always be skewed by vested interests, and by personal prejudices, so the truth is going to VERY hard to find..

Well not it isnt. So no it's not.

Repeated surveys of published peer-reviewed articles, papers and studies by the world's climate scientists have established that 97 per cent agree that manmade global warming is a very real problem. That is the truth, according to the experts who know the truth from an internet rumour.

The myth that those scientists, all thousands and thousands of them worldwide, are only saying that in order to get grant money, ie vested interest, is clearly ludicrous. Most are tenured academics who do not rely on grant money for existence. For those who do rely on grant money for a non-tenured existence, the anti-climate-change private sector has massive amounts of grant money available too.

The fossil fuel industry has millions upon millions available. We are not seeing many scientists taking their money and coming up with a pro-fossil fuel result. Only that three percent of contrarians and outliers, many of whom work for the fossil-fuel funded Heritage Institute and similar right wing "think tanks" with their vested interests.

Plus, the way science works, new theories that oust old ones are more likely to get funded. That's how progress is made. That's why many of the 3 per cent of contrarians are giving it a shot.

There is absolutely no evidence at all to support the myth of widespread scientific bias on the grounds of grant funding for pro-climate-change science. It is only unfounded supposition.

Edited By Hopper on 29/11/2020 08:14:53

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, no matter what energy we use, it all has a cost and that cost is not only a financial cost. Every living thing on this planet needs to exploit the earth's resources one way or another and nothing is absolutely free. In my mined, even wind power is taking natural energy out of the global climate system, OK so wind power has been used for decades, but not on the scale that it is currently and not really as wind farms. I think our biggest problem is the throw away trend and reusing and recycling everything we can, should be adopted much more widely. The trend over the last 20 or more years of having the latest computer or mobile phone for example, that is, it seems to be, once you've bought it and started to use it, it's already out of date. So I think one of the biggest questions to ask is; is our ratio of consumption over time. getting too big.

Regards Nick.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by ChrisH on 28/11/2020 20:55:42:

It has been stated the major problem is too many people on the planet. Agreed.

The problem is not really too many people. There is enough arable land and water to support a much larger population, if managed well and using modern farming methods and fertilisers etc.

The problem is too many people living a western, middle-class, high-energy consumption lifestyle. IE, getting out of poverty and living better. Look at China. The carbon footprint there is not just because the West outsourced their dirty industry there, but thanks to manufacturing, 400 million Chinese have joined the world's middle-class, living in houses with electrical appliances, hot water etc and driving cars burning petrol. And a similar but smaller number in India. Plus Africa and South America are modernising fast, thus burning more fossil fuels to power it.

The answer is not to reduce the world population, which we can't control anyway, but to reduce the carbon output of the burgeoning wealthy middle class. Hence renewables etc.

History shows that as nations become more wealthy, birth rates decline due to availability of birth control, higher education levels, women having more say over their lives and so on. So allowing the middle class to continue growing worldwide will slow population growth, which will also slow carbon output etc. We just have to make sure that growing middle class doesnt poison the planet in the meantime. Hence, renewables.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Nicholas Farr on 29/11/2020 08:25:05:

. I think our biggest problem is the throw away trend and reusing and recycling everything we can, should be adopted much more widely. The trend over the last 20 or more years of having the latest computer or mobile phone for example, that is, it seems to be, once you've bought it and started to use it, it's already out of date. So I think one of the biggest questions to ask is; is our ratio of consumption over time. getting too big.

Regards Nick.

Absolutely. At a time when we should be working hard on reducing manufacturing carbon footprints, things are being made increasingly to last only a short time then get a new one.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

things are being made increasingly to last only a short time then get a new one.

A governmental issue from the point of taxation – replacement items are more easily taxed and suppliers are employed (even if only ‘middle-men&rsquo.

A manufacturing issue of trade – long-lived items is not good for their future business.

An efficiency issue – whole life costs need to be considered by purchasers.

A buyer's issue in that they want cheapness – often at any cost overall (short-sightedness, even to the point of ‘buy cheap, buy twice&rsquo.

A fashion issue – people want to ‘keep up with the Joneses (as they used to say).

Solve that lot and the place might be better for it.🙂

Where I worked, for some time, plant from the 1920s was still in use. Surpassed by energy efficiency eventually, but it took until the 1980s before the earlier technology was effectively surpassed and out-dated. Some of that was simply industry trading agreements (price fixing).

[Rod RenshawParticipant @rodrenshaw28584]

For most threads it does not matter, but for threads like this it might be useful if posters would please indicate where in the world they live as this would help the rest of us to understand their viewpoint better.

Rod

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Where in the world do you live, Rod ?

MichaelG.

[Rod RenshawParticipant @rodrenshaw28584]

Michael,

Cheshire, England. Our weather is not as extreme as some posters on here apparently endure.

Rod

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks for that, Rod

… as you will see from my public profile, we are in the same county.

MichaelG.

[Rod RenshawParticipant @rodrenshaw28584]

Michael

Agreed, that's 2 omissions I am guilty of. For what its worth I tend to agree with the evidence based science approach and with the conclusions of posters like Hopper and Neil.

Rod

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Hopper,

I was not taking a stance, one way or the other.

What I was saying was that everyone will have their own view, biased by their own beliefs, whether self interest, what they wish / choose to believe, or what they are told (Whether true or not )

None of us are likely to be truely impartial, either because of what we wish, or because of the information available to us.

The difficulty is sorting the wheat from the chaff!

Being pessimistic, a solution, if it materialises, it will not come for several generations. Possibly events will force it upon the world. Look what happened to most of the dinosaurs because they did not adapt quickly enough!

Time for me to revert to engineering, rather than philosophy.

Howard

[Phil WhitleyParticipant @philwhitley94135]

NDIY, The wind generators have not been curtailed as such, but in the earlier days of nuclear, the generators had a contract which stated in simple terms that the grid would buy all the energy that the nuclear stations could produce, and other forms of generation would be used to top up the grid until demand was met. Remember also that demand has to be met as accurately as possible, when you try to push extra energy into the grid, bad things happen! As far as I know this contract is still in place, which results in the grid buying everything the nuclear stations produce, and using the energy supplies which are easy to trim in order to balance supply with demand, and the easiest and quickest generation, both to shut down and to start up, is wind. In other words, wind is shut down so that the nukes can enforce their contract. If it was the other way round, and we used every watt of available wind power before turning to nukes, they would simply be bankrupted by their running costs!

[Phil WhitleyParticipant @philwhitley94135]

Silly old duffer,

There are no "Bloopers" in my post, just differences of opinion, based on evidence, and some of your assertions are hardly scientific. I agree 100% with using scientific method, the problem arises when scientific method is thrown out of the window in favour of obviously flawed computer modelling.

Richard Feynman said “It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.” Here we could substitue "experiment" with "reality We have listened to Science tell us what was going to happen in the 46 years since Jim Hansons address to senate, and by what date it was going to happen, and they have been wrong every time, not just errors of magnitude, but errors of fact. There Have been "only ten years left to save the planet" bulletins put out by many sources at many different times, and as each deadline passes with nothing happening, the credibility, not of properly applied science, but of the scientists themselves is weakened. If only they could get any of their predictions right!

It is incorrect to say that putting a bag over my head proves that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, it merely proves that I cannot survive without oxygen, a classic example of muddled thinking, or an attempt to bamboozle the people who read the headline, but don't understand the details?

The CO2 from the industrial revolution is NOT still in the atmosphere, as I said, CO2 is a transient gas and is dissolved in rain and falls to earth every time it rains, which is where the "acidification of the seas" scare story came from!

"Many civilisations failed through bad weather wrecking their agriculture" which ones please? Although bad weather did put paid to agriculture which was happening in GREENland, the clue is in the name!

I am not going to continue this, save to say that water vapour is a many times more abundant and potent greenhouse gas than CO2 is, and we have no control over evaporation, the added bonus is, of course, that cloudy nights are warmer than clear ones. Water vapour is also transient, and the more rain that falls, the more CO2 is washed from the atmosphere, and despite widespread scare stories about droughts There seems to be no shortage of rain!

Now back to climategate at the University of East Anglia, If you really believe in "the scientific method" please explain to us all what part of aforesaid method is the statement that came from their climate science department which stated "We have to get rid of the Medieval warm period" Remebering Feynmsn, this looks like a clear example of making the data fit the theorem, or in legal terms, tampering with the evidence! Everyone involved in thi debate should read all they can find on climategate, which was nothing more than an international scandal of scientists on both sides of the atlantic conspiring to alter data to prove a hypothesis which would, and DID lead to massive funding. People have such short memories.

Phil

Edited By Phil Whitley on 29/11/2020 15:31:00

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