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Absobloodylutely! (and if my age decile theory is correct - and no doubt it - then rather a lot of deniers won't be around within the next decade or so - I only hope that we get serious action before then though because I deeply suspect that if we are held up for another 10 years we will be certain to have tipped over....to a point beyond which we cannot return)Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexS
Do you think that we are also focusing on the wrong point.
We have become a very wasteful consumer based society creating a lot of waste and sourcing products from all over the globe. Everyone talks about our dirty fuel source but the reality is we don’t have a viable alternative so we are stuck with it for the immediate future so no point banging on about it too much but there are major lifestyle changes that could be happening but they don’t seem to get much attention
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
Eh? Where you been? We have so much VIABLE solar going in that it is starting to cause difficulties for the out-of-date poles and wires - the old needs to catch up, but that doesn't mean the new is not viable - it means the old is NO LONGER viable. That means we need the three levels of Govt to press the "Go MUCH faster" button. The only part about solar energy production that is not yet properly up to speed ($$ wise) is battery storage, and that will change quite quickly I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
Ask Chris Parks how his power bills are going - without a battery. He has a large energy consumption house/lifestyle that costs bugger all to run, last time I heard.
What do you mean by the immediate future - the end of this year? I think perhaps you could do some research into what % of Germany's energy is from renewables RIGHT NOW, and what their targets are. Not forgetting that Germany (and the rest of Europe) has nowhere near the amount of sunshine that we have. They are putting us to shame with renewable energy. I must also mention that many/most nuclear powered countries are looking to phase it out - so we should not be talking about phasing it in.
Like Alex, I'm pretty much over doing research for other people who won't/don't/can't believe it anyway (that's a general comment aimed at nobody in particular - just lazy researchers in general).
Ok, let’s turn off the coal fired plants when it isn’t windy, is overcast and at night. How are we looking now?Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
I will not sit down and shut up at your behest or anyone else and if that's how you project your intellect then I really do fear for the future generations.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexS
I am currently researching the points I referred to and was merely attempting to open up other avenues and factors that could be attributed to climate change.
That's the same sort of comment that came up from someone else (a Pollie I think) - we have to switch everything off now, and convert to renewables instantly. It's a ridiculous notion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
You said we don't have a viable alternative - we do, but it's not viable for everybody, yet. It's about transitioning. So let's transition a little faster, especially with attitudes and mindsets. Get these damned conservative Govts bums off their hands. Get the deniers out of the way - sooner or later there'll be no choice but to change one's mind - the $$ involved will see to it, and the deniers will be dragged into renewables anyway. Commerce will see to that. It's only a matter whether it's too late or not by then.
I repeat - what do you call the immediate future?
So do I Ray, but maybe for different reasons.Quote:
Originally Posted by rwbuild
One day everyone still alive will understand what the urgency was all about. I share Alex's deep frustration at being held back by <20% of the population who have an unjustified fear of the unknown.
The Tony Abbots of this world remind me of the Russian Submarine Commander in The Hunt For Red October. So zealous was he to kill the Red October that his torpedo launch hit his own sub. Immediately before it hit the second in command said "You've killed US, you idiot".
By immediate future I am suggesting perhaps 5 to 10 years who knows, it all depends on what technology we come up with to replace our current supply and how long it would take to implement. What is this viable alternative we have now you speak of?Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
You seem to have misunderstood my post, I am all for the transition to renewables and hope we can come up with a solution ASAP to replace coal but I am also a realist. The people who tout that they are running on green energy ( like Canberra is gloating about) is a nonsense and nothing but an accounting exercise unless you are off grid.
The first part of my post was about concentrating on the areas we can make a difference to now but that seems to have been missed.
I deeply suspect that will be too late.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
Best read post #323 again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
Hopefully a solution is found quicker but I can’t imagine whatever it is it can be implemented quicklyQuote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
I don’t know the details of Chris Parks setup but if he doesn’t have a battery I can only assume that he draws his power from the coal fired grid and sells the energy he collects back into the system? It might be a financially viable setup and that is great but it doesn’t solve the problem that we still have.
Personally, I think it was too late a decade ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
These things have velocity and inertia. The atmosphere wont change in a fortnight just because we plant a billion trees one weekend.
Unless we come up with some stupendous technology that can pull a billion tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere ever day for a year (I just made that up, for I'd think the number must be Very Large) then we are hopeless.
Knowing our stupidity though, we'll build up an industry on taxation and rebates, which will encourage the big companies to "turn on" such machines in such vast number and flip us into a bloody ice age!
edit: There is this List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions - Wikipedia
Can you BELIEVE those numbers!!!!! Holy Cow!
Look at Japan ... 3,494 tons PER km2 PER year!!!
Look at China ... 1,133 tons PER km2 PER year...
Australia! 16.5 tons PER person PER year. Can you imagine a stack of pure carbon as a block next to you weighing 16.5 tons? We generate that every year!
Its horrifying.
Chris uses most (I think) of the energy he produces during the day, sells back whatever is left, and uses a very small amount of energy at night. IIRC his power bills are very small indeed, particularly compared to what they were. When batteries become economically viable he will add one (again IIRC) and will be more or less self-sustainable - but not necessarily off grid.
Indeed WP. Clearly I hope you're wrong, but there are numerous scientists who are now realising that the whole inertia/momentum thing may have already bitten a very large chunk out of our bum, and that it may already be too late regardless of what we do - trillion trees or not.Quote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
A point that I want to make clear is that as far as I'm concerned, it's ok to have some coal fired energy to produce base load for industry (if that's the only way it can be done for a while). What we have to do is cut the buggery out of the general usage domestic and small business usage, with renewable. Just to use a number - if we can cut our coal fired energy to perhaps 10% of what is is now (and as quickly as possible) then that might be viable until other technologies are invented to completely eradicate coal. That might be 20-30 years for all I know, but a radical reduction is what is required.
Same with oil/petrol/diesel - no doubt some types of vehicles such as a D10 bulldozer won't work so well on batteries. No worries - it's the 100s of millions of cars that are by far the biggest problem.
Everything in moderation, and all that. Science has and can produce the answers. We just need our Govts and nay-sayers to let them get on with it apace.
EV’s will add to the load and further complicate the issue as well.
I think regardless of the nay sayers, we will ultimately follow what the rest of the world does anyway.
EV's?Quote:
Originally Posted by Beardy
I fear that if it's left to a conservative (small c) Govt who is too chicken to lead, then you will be correct. I include every Govt since 1996 in that - Howard was just a populist, Rudd was too chicken to call a Double Dissolution on the ETS, and he would have caned it - we hadn't yet quite gotten to Stupid Parliament Times then, in 2009). Gillard was lucky to stay alive as long as she did. Abbott....don't start me......, Turnbull really was just a Fizza with his nuts held in a firm-but-not-yet-painful grip of the hands of the party establishment (whatever the hell that is), and SmoKo is currently on full disreputable display, but apparently with no grip on his nether bits - go figure! (I guess it's hard to grab what ain't there)
Australia, despite its small population, should be leading the world on energy for quite a number of reasons:
1. Coal - we have shightloads of the good stuff and can be somewhat ransom-like with to whom and how it it sold (same with Uranium and Lithium)
2. We are the sunniest continent of all (and the driest), and so should be paving the way with that tech - show them how it is done
3. We have just had (or are still having) the most demonstrative season EVER of how things are going to become WORLDWIDE, and the World has taken notice....maybe we should too......
4. We are supposed to be a smart country, but somehow I think there is one "o" too many in that
5. (and probably most importantly) Like NZ, but not as much, we punch well above our weight on the international stage - if we damn well show leadership you can be sure that we will be listened too and followed! SmoKo just can't see that if he/we said "RIGHT- That's enough! We are going to show that world what can be done!" we would be the envy of the world, just as we were during the GFC. Anyone remember that? We WERE the toast of the world..."How did they do that???"
Woodpixel - you were still in Finance then I think....what was our reputation? How famous were we?
We CAN do it again, but we must not be held back by the Abbots of this country.
Well then again, if we had stuck with Abbot/Hockey and sound budgeting instead of going with Turnbull who spent like a Labor PM we might have had the money by now to make the changes you are asking for, Brett.You cant have it both ways. :doh:Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
We have four quite distinct seasons up here, and the change from summer to autumn is usually the most noticeable of them. There is usually a period of a week around end of Feb to early March when it is quite apparent that Summer is over.
Right now it's a little too early to tell but we may well be going through that period from last Monday through to the end of next week - which would make that seasonal change 3 weeks early. After all that blistering weather up to last Sunday (36-38°), we have had temps of only one day above 20° (Tues was 21°), and for the next week 15, 16, 16, 19, 21, 22, 21°. Maybe that's just a 10-12 day dip, but the rest of this month will tell the story.
We are also to expect in excess of 300mm of rain in the next week - and most of that over this coming weekend. I sure hope other firegrounds are getting good rain too.
New renewables became cheaper than gas or coal power back about 2014 on a cents per kilowatt hour basis. (Don't even think about nuclear,,,triple the cost and politically suicide) The trouble is, as with all new technology, everything is still developing very fast and we cannot be sure yet which system will mature into the most efficient/economical/manageable.
Right now there is a solar thermal mass system working in South Australia which provides the energy for a large hydroponic green house which produces most of the tomatoes which Coles sells around the country.see here (World-first solar tower powered tomato farm opens in Port Augusta | RenewEconomy)
This is looking very good. They are using compressed air to transfer energy from a solar tower to a great big sand filled silo. The hot air heats the sand and it will hold the heat for weeks or months so energy is on tap 24/7. The extraction of energy is as simple as running steam through the hot silo then through a conventional turbine. Simple, conventional reliable baseload power.
Next thing "We MUST take CO2 out of the atmosphere rapidly and we MUST vastly reduce the amount we are putting into it." There is a way and it is called charcoal or bio-char. Charcoal has been dug into agricultural soil for about ten thousand years because it makes a great soil improver. Imagine if every bit of crop residue, every bit of forestry waste, most of the urban garbage etc. was put through a pyrolysis system which would produce enough hydrocarbon gas to power itself and make large amounts of granular biochar to mix back into the soil. Currently people can buy carbon offsets to ease their conscience about flying etc but the money seems to go into making village cooking in poor communities slightly more efficient rather than being directed to actually putting carbon back into the ground. What we need is to see global agriculture powered by plant sourced hydrocarbons and a biochar byproduct put back into the soil.
- - - Updated - - -
Doesnt biochar (or simply burning) produce CO2? (Biochar - Wikipedia)
There was an absolutely fantastic writeup in the local rag here about this. It seemed a bit too good to be true.
FenceFurniture, those low temperatures are from Mother Nature to lull you into a sense of summers completion. She will come back in a fortnight and brutally mug you with cudgels. You will rue those words of finality :)
Len
The tomato farm project is an interesting concept. I didn't know anything about it. The media article was a little short on information so I went surfing.
36.6MWth Integrated Energy System based on CSP, Australia
The comments I would make are that:
1. It is good to see somebody taking the initiative.
2. It is a pity Australia is not developing this level of lateral thinking (remember Edward de Bono)
3. It is relatively small scale
4. Despite being small scale, look at the area of mirrors required. Not an issue in desert regions but increasingly an issue as we move towards larger population concentrations where land is at a premium.
5. The sand heat storage is a little reminiscent of the salt bed storage that has been used in trials for solar power, although I don't think this is quite the same.
6. My reading of the information leads me to think that they are not completely self sufficient regarding power.
Please understand I am not knocking the project. I think it is the way to go.
Regards
Paul
I was thinking about this thread and the "do we do without cars".... well, that is interesting.
A large number of people here seem to use eBikes. Very low effort. As a hoot, last night, I checked eBay and there are many kits to retrofit any bike with some offering 1kw of power. That must go like stink!
A couple of dudes have bikes with itty bitty petrol motors on them. I'd imagine they must run on almost nothing.
Perhaps not for all, there is a dude here who rides his OneWheel to work. Nice! He cruises at considerable speed just riding it like skateboard.
Admittedly, this wont get you to Sydney or Perth, but from what I "read" I think 99% of all trips are < 5km.... or something something.... plus a bit of exercise could do 80% of us pod-bellies a bit of good :p:p:rolleyes::rolleyes:
:DQuote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
Well I did say that it was still too early to be sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by woodPixel
The greatest barrier to electricity investment, whatever the nature of that power source, is in fact the commercialisation that has more of less taken place over the last 25 years in Australia. It is not complete as there are still many government owned installations. Theoretically they are bound by the same rules and regulations as (AEMO monitors) the rest of the privately owned stations. In practice the government can direct their operations to "minimise" charges they bid into the system at lower prices than are really economic.
In the short term this appears wonderful and the government sees it reducing prices to the retailers and maybe the consumers too, if it is passed on. Long term repercussions are that private investors are wary of entering the market. They are only going to enter the market if they can see a return on their investment.
During my day shift last Monday I was watching the price in South Australia. Most of the sunlight hours it sat at -$1000/MWhr (yes minus). The system load was low (around 800MW) and my conjecture is that rooftop solar was producing almost all the supply required. This meant that almost every commercial producer would have shut down: Gas stations, solar farms and wind farms.
This is not what a new entrant to the market wishes to see. No chance of a return on their investment.
There is no real chance of a reversal on the privatisation of electricity supply in Australia so we must recognise that every project has to be commercially viable. The laws of supply and demand are nowhere as glaringly obvious as with the electricity market.
I do like the concept of multiple use technology such as the tomato farm posted by Toymaker Len. It increases the viability options.
Regards
Paul
From the article;
“The tipping point would not be reached until CO2 levels were at around 1200 ppm, more than four times pre-industrial levels, and three times current levels. But once it was passed, he projected that temperatures would soar by an additional 8 degrees C (14.4 degrees F) as a result of the lost clouds. He suggested that such a tipping point “may have contributed importantly to abrupt climate changes in the geological past.”
Does this mean that this has may have happened before and is just part of a cycle?
Lappa, You're gonna burn in hell for saying that. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lappa
It means that it may have happened before (for other reasons).Quote:
Originally Posted by Lappa
It does not mean that it's part of a cycle because burning of fossil fuels has only been happening for 200 years, and hasn't happened before (certainly not by mankind, and certainly not on the scale of the last 60-70 years) - so not cyclic.
There is no escaping the fact that burning fossil fuels has increased CO2 levels by ~33% in an extremely short period of time (since the mid 20th Century). There is no indication of what is meant by "abrupt" climate changes in the past (following that link just leads to a sales site), but in geological terms 60-70years is absolutely instantaneous. I would have thought that abrupt would mean something like 5,000-10,000 years in geological terms (given that Ice Ages are measured in the 100s of thousands of years.
It is not possible to normalise what is happening.
Mankind’s burning of Fossil fuels is not the only source of CO2.
It may be a little bit of a red herring to mention that elevated temperatures and elevated levels of CO2 have been on the planet before as that is not really the question. The question being that can modern mankind survive with the levels that are current and with the levels predicted without action to curtail the rise.
Remember that modern man (hommo sapiens) has only been around for about 1,000,000 years. Modern man has only recorded information in about the last 7,000 years (the early Chinese civilisations?) and not seriously or reliably until way after that. This is a graph of the recent rise in carbon dioxide over the 800,000 years:
Attachment 468369
It seems to me that the previous high levels of CO2 and high temperatures while true are misleading as mankind did not have to cope with them. Remember too that the population of the earth only reached one billion around the year 1800. The planet is a lot more stressed today with nearly eight times that population. Arguably we will require up to ten times the food, ten times the energy and ten times the habitable space than we did when the good Captain Cook was floating around the high seas shoving his flag into virgin soils. The full CO2 article from NASA is here.
Graphic: The relentless rise of carbon dioxide – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet
If you wish to see where mankind fits into the evolution timeline, you can see here:
Timeline of human evolution - Wikipedia
I appreciate that for many of you this will only be a refresher to what you already know. For myself, I needed more definitive timelines of man's position in history and more concrete information as to what CO2 levels we are talking about.
Regards
Paul
Care to substantiate this?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lappa
This may provide some insight to CO2 production:
"Due to human activities, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has been rising extensively since the Industrial Revolution and has now reached dangerous levels not seen in the last 3 million years.1 2 3 Human sources of carbon dioxide emissions are much smaller than natural emissions but they have upset the natural balance that existed for many thousands of years before the influence of humans."
Mankind has created an imbalance through excess:
"This is because natural sinks remove around the same quantity of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than are produced by natural sources.4 This had kept carbon dioxide levels balanced and in a safe range. But human sources of emissions have upset the natural balance by adding extra carbon dioxide to the atmosphere without removing any";
The source:
Main sources of carbon dioxide emissions | CO2 Human Emissions
I would comment that we have additionally removed large amounts of the natural sinks (trees) and as I have pointed out before, this has considerably exacerbated the problem: Perhaps even more than the actual burning of fossil fuels, but thatis open to conjecture and purely my supposition unsupported by any factual evidence.
Regards
Paul
CertainlyQuote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
In an average year, wildfires around the world burn an area equivalent to the size of
India and emit more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than global road, rail,
shipping and air transport combined.
Aug 5, 2019
California’s 2018 fire season, including the largest fire in state history, released nearly
as much climate-warming and air-polluting emissions as a year’s worth of electricity use there
The wildfires released 68 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, according to the
US Geological Survey, or 15% of the state's total emissions. For comparison,
all electricity use in California in 2016 produced roughly 76 million tons in emissions.
Dec 4, 2018
The historic wildfires in Australia likely unleashed about 900 million tons of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere, equivalent to nearly double the country's total yearly fossil fuel emissions,
according to scientists.
Jan. 23, 2020, 5:57 AM AEDT
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world's volcanoes, both on land and undersea,
generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and
industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide.
Science News, Articles, and Information - Scientific American › article › earthtalks-volcanoes-or-humans
Peat fires and plant biomass that grow on it cause the material to oxidize into gaseous form,
especially CO2 which is emitted into the atmosphere.
etc, etc,
Ignoring that those figures are quoting unprecedented fire seasons (exacerbated by CC in the first place), are you (Lappa) suggesting that we just carry on dumping fossil fuel burnt CO2 into the atmosphere at the same increasing rates, are are you suggesting something else? Your position seems to be a little unclear.
Thanks for the articles Paul. While I do believe that NASAs article aren’t fake ( I note that some believe they are the great conspirators ie fake moon landing etc) I do take some umbridge with their diagrams then wording.
Their diagram shows apparent CO2 levels going back 800,000 years yet they state “are higher than they have been at any time in the past 400,000 years”
If their data is so accurate, why not state 800,000 years?
Then they state “In 2013, CO2levels surpassed 400 ppm for the first time in recorded history.” If They are so confident in their data, why not say “ for the first time in 800,000 years”
Maybe picking at straws, but if the data is so accurate and they have great confidence in it, why not utilise it?
Samples where taken from ice cores but are CO2 levels the same at any point on the planet!?
If not, by how much do they vary?
I have no idea re sampling so just throwing it out there.
BUT, taking in the contribution of wild fires, peat fires, volcanoes over many, many years to CO2 emissions, did wildfires emissions help cause CC or did CC cause them ?Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
Lappa, when I get to hell, I will save you a spot, I think you are gonna need it. Looks like you are only a day or so behind me. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lappa
The last 400k were showing all the peaks which were significantly higher than the 400k before that - so they are more relevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lappa
Well one hand washes the other, meaning that wildfires will perpetuate CC which will make wildfires worse, and so on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lappa
However, none of that is any reason at all why we should continue putting extraordinary amounts of CO2 out - in fact it's even more reason why we should be reducing CO2 emissions.
I'm not sure if I read a response anywhere, so I'll just ask the question: do you accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas which causes the planet to warm?
Of course..Have I stated otherwise? I have had an intimate relationship with that (and other gases) for many a year.
In actual fact, I measure it 4 days a week. To me its a lovely gas and a joy to see. The higher the reading the better.