Not everyone agrees with those numbers
I don't see anything in that article that contradicts what I said?
The figures seem pretty much in line with the USGS figures I quoted
All he says is that they have a relatively small sample size and that [i]"Our planet's isolated volcanic frontiers could easily be hiding a monster or two"[/i]
Okay. Are we very likely to stumble across 11,200 volcanic monsters?
He also suggests we might need to include emission from degassing volcanoes and magma because [i]"this process might give off as much as half the CO2 put out by fully active volcanoes"[/i]
Okay, so lets add 0.13 to the largest estimate of 0.26.
That gives us 0.39 billion tons.
Manmade CO2 still absolutely dwarfs that at 35 billion tons and rising.
Deniers, Alarmists.. not sure there is much to choose between them to be honest.
Silly graphs showing warming over a hundred years are as bad as silly graphs showing stalling across 15.
Climate change is natural, this is a fact I'm afraid. Very scary stuff.. thank god for the Scientists agreeing upon that!
What is acceptable for climate change? Slow warming is fine? a rapid or slow decrease perhaps? How much effect is man allowed to have?
Climate should be rapidly decreasing apparently, would that be okay because we didn't have any effect upon it?
We can make ethical/sustainable decisions based upon real data rather than things we don't understand.
Let's just deal with the small things in our Society and let climate change do it's thing, humans are not very good at planning 50 years ahead let alone a million years.
Please do change the way you live for ethical and sustainable reasons but don't do it based on hogwash about the bogeyman. Come on chaps lets be sensible for once.
I've just found where the STW deniers and head-in-sanders are hanging out
[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/what-car-do-you-have ]Here and the other car threads[/url]
Given the increasing number of extreme weather events affecting the area I live, doing something seems sensible.
I've just found where the STW deniers and head-in-sanders are hanging out
What's your point?
Gobuchul, a quick sum says that even taking the highest figures for volcanic out-gassing of C02 in the article you link you still only get to 2% of anthropogenic CO2.
The point is that even the specialists don't fully understand where to look and how to measure the CO2.
As opposed to deep drilling on and off shore, massive transportation vessels and pipelines, refineries, storage and distribution network.
However, the hydrogen systems do not replace having to do most of that.
Read Bad Science if you don't agree with me.
Brilliant clearly you have not read it as what it does is complain about the widespread lack of understanding of science a subjetc matte ryou have so amply demonstrated.
Slow warming is fine?
Well - slower warming gives us (and nature) more chance to adapt. Hoewver the other issue is that a warmer atmosphere has more energy in it which gives rise to more extreme weather - hurricanes, freezes etc. Nature can deal with this to an extent, but we're a static farmer species and we pin our future abundance of food on a few harvests each year. Take out a few of those and we'll be in trouble.
Plus if a few million sparrows starve well it's bad, but we don't care so much about it. If a few million people die, it's worse.
I am a geologist and know exactly where to look. Direct measurement not being feasible estimates are made. I'm happy with the estimates being accurate to an order of magnitude which is all you need to know to say volcanic emissions are tiny compared with anthropogenic emissions.
Produce hydrogen using a fuel cell powered by solar panels on your own roof and store it in a tank on site, and I assure you you need none of:-
deep drilling on and off shore, massive transportation vessels and pipelines, refineries, storage and distribution network.
"The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems has built a completely self-sufficient solar house (SSSH) in Freiburg, Germany. The entire energy demand for heating, domestic hot water, electricity, and cooking is supplied by the sun. The combination of highly efficient solar systems with conventional means to save energy is the key to the successful operation of the house. Seasonal energy storage is accomplished by electrolysis of water and pressurized storage of hydrogen and oxygen. The energy for electricity and hydrogen generation is supplied by solar cells. Hydrogen can be reconverted to electricity with a fuel cell or used for cooking. It also serves as a back-up for low temperature heat. There are provisions for short term storage of electricity and optimal routing of energy. The SSSH is occupied by a family. An intensive measurement program is being carried out. The data are used for the validation of the dynamic simulation calculations, which formed the basis for planning the SSSH."
Produce hydrogen using a fuel cell powered by solar panels on your own roof and store it in a tank on site,
Seriously?
So with about 2000 - 3000 kwh of electricity per year I could produce enough hydrogen to power a practical vehicle?
You have solved our energy problems. Please release your vehicle design and save us, whilst making yourself very rich.
pressurized storage of hydrogen and oxygen
Lovely stuff pressurized hydrogen, not very volatile at all.
No mention of powering a vehicle though?
The problem with solar is that the absolute maximum amount of energy that can be generated per m2 is relatively low, averages about 100W in the UK.
As opposed to deep drilling on and off shore, massive transportation vessels and pipelines, refineries, storage and distribution network.
Exactly. It really is a remarkable illustration of how people take oil and other hi-tech energy supplies for granted when you hear them complaining that putting a few windmills up in the sea is somehow too technically challenging to be economic.
Edukat. I would need to know much more about what you are 'doing' and your whole story before I would consider your idea of 'sensible' as fact. Your real story might be inspirational for all I know but I'm not going to believe someone chatting guff on a cycle forum without a bit more info.
Molgrips. I would consider that unethical and unsustainable and unproven.
We can warm it a bit and that is fine as long as the humans don't die.. Isn't that the type of living that got us here??
I'm afraid my vehicle wouldn't compete with one powered by one producing hundreds of tonnes of CO2. Fossil fuels are too cheap.
As for producing enough renewable electricity, that's really not a problem. A litre of petrol is equivalent to about 10kWh. I used 360l of petrol last year which is the same amount of energy as is produced by 14 PV panels in this part of the world.
when you hear them complaining that putting a few windmills up in the sea is somehow too technically challenging to be economic.
It is.
You need nearly all of the same equipment, skills and technology as offshore oil and gas, with a fraction of the output.
Lovely stuff pressurized hydrogen, not very volatile at all.
Yore right only a total f***ing lunatic would have pressurised, flammable gas in their house...hang on.. my toasts burning.
Molgrips. I would consider that unethical and unsustainable and unproven.
What, exactly? Not sure what you mean.
Yore right only a total f***ing lunatic would have pressurised, flammable gas in their house.
Supplies of Natural gas and LPG do occasionally go wrong and results can be terrible.
However, hydrogen is a different ball game. Can you remember your physics at school?
Doing:
Living close enough to Madame's place of work that she can walk (so can junior)
Buying locally within reason
No gas
Produce twice as much electricity as we consume
Heat with wood (not much needed as the house is well insulated - November and still 21°C inside with 10°C outside this morning)
Recycling, buying second-hand
Holidays using public transport and human power (we walked to Santiago and caught the bus back this year)
On the negative side we ski which contributes to maintaining a town at altitude in Winter.
I remember Susie B's knockers from school if that helps?
Oh and somehting about temperature and pressure of gasses of different compositions? and something about forcing and global warming potential?
I've just found where the STW deniers and head-in-sanders are hanging outHere and the other car threads
Switching to a car with a lower CO2 output isn't always the answer...you need to factor in the manufacturing cost of the car too. In terms of environmental friendliness, it's probably better to keep an old car in tip-top condition and use that than to buy a new vehicle every three years.
Also, you need to factor in things like the efficiency of your home's central heating, whether you regularly use air travel and whether you have children...
IMHO, the sooner we rid ourselves of a dependence on non-renewable energy, the better. We've some uncomfortable choices to make in the next few years and we simply cannot continue with a model of unrestricted growth.
[quote=Edukator ]"The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems has built a completely self-sufficient solar house (SSSH) in Freiburg, Germany.
That would be in Freiburg in the far South of Germany? I wonder why they didn't do it in Hamburg?
I used 360l of petrol last year which is the same amount of energy as is produced by 14 PV panels in this part of the world.
Well done. However, I bet the bloke that fitted your solar power system used a lot more.
Living close enough to Madame's place of work that she can walk (so can junior)
This isn't possible for the vast majority of people. Lucky you.
Holidays using public transport and human power (we walked to Santiago and caught the bus back this year)
Where from? Are you based in Spain or South America?
That would be in Freiburg in the far South of Germany? I wonder why they didn't do it in Hamburg?
Doesn't make it null and void though. Plenty of people DO live in places at that latitude and greater. Possibly the majority, thinking about it!
Maybe, but the discussion seems to be about what we can do, and the vast, vast majority of people on this forum live at significantly higher latitudes than Freiburg. Of course solar makes sense if you live in Spain or SoCal, but we need to be careful how we extrapolate.
lots of people don't have the funds/permission/both to radically alter the fabric of their house.
millions of people live in crappy old brick boxes that would require so much alteration that the most economical course of action is to rebuild from scratch.
We had the choice between the modest house we live in near to Madame's place of work (which is in the most expensive part of town) or a flash house out of town with a swimming pool and huge garden. It's often choice rather than luck.
You bet wrong on the number of solar panels, our electricity consumption is around 1750kWh a year. (Edit: I misread you on this - I've no doubt the solar installer used some fuel, as did all the others in the supply chain. However pessimistic you are the embedded energy is les than four years production)
Santiago from St Jean de Luz in France (which is near home).
Maybe, but the discussion seems to be about what we can do
This must not become a personal discussion; otherwise it'll descend into mud slinging and willy waving and that'll get us nowhere.
It's often choice rather than luck.
Sometimes, but often people don't have that much choice. Your experience is just that. Other people's experience varies a lot, so don't get all preachy about it.
aracer - MemberThat would be in Freiburg in the far South of Germany? I wonder why they didn't do it in Hamburg?
It seems they have a branch in Freiburg, and none in Hamburg
Edukator - You live at 43° latitude. Your experiences with solar will be completely different from most on this forum.
It's often choice rather than luck
Totally disagree on that one.
Willy waving or proving what can be done in reply to a direct question on the previous page, Molgrips?
When I first went to see an energy adviser I was a little dubious, when I got the quote for the solar panels with the payback times too. Everything I've done has matched or bettered expectations. I'm passing on my positive experiences which may encourage others to invest.
I get about 30% more sun than my sister in the UK but as the feed in tarifs in the UK were better when she installed her PV she'll get payback in about the same time.
The return on investment is faster on energy saving measures in the UK so things like triple glazing pay back faster in the UK than here.
[quote=Northwind ]It seems they have a branch in Freiburg, and none in Hamburg
So to put it another way, why are they based in Freiburg, not Hamburg?
Though I note they have a branch office in Gelsenkirchen, which is of similar latitude to London and considered asking why their house wasn't there, but figured at least people would have heard of Hamburg.
Why Freiburg indeed. Because in about 78 there was a proposed nuclear plant for the Rhine. The locals objected and committed to a programme of energy saving and alternative energy so the nuclear plant wouldn't be needed. They won and solar city Freiburg was born.
Theres almost always choice.
There may be few people who can quote extreme examples but for the majority there will be more sustainable options that arent taken because its still less important to them than a normal measures of success.
To be fair if you had hydrogen stored in your house you may suddenly vanish with a large squeaky pop.
Seriously though it now appears the climate change deniers (not skeptics, to be a skeptic there must be a way of changing your position if enough evidence is given) are on the back-foot. Indeed while I was walking the mutt on Saturday morning there was an article on the 'Today' programme about how the 'skeptics' are now actually agreeing that anthropomorphic climate change was happening but were now mainly arguing about what the effect is/will be.
Here is my vanilla response to all global warming threads.
"Global warming, also known as Climate Change, is a STUPID theory by a bunch of tree-hugging liberal hippies that states unless we go back and live in caves, the polar ice caps will melt and life as we know it will cease to exist. This theory comes from a bunch of idiotic scientists who really have no clue what they're talking about...after all, they're only scientists, who ever wants to listen to them? I mean sure, I admit they were right about the world being round...and the planets going around the sun... and lightning being caused by opposite charges between the earth and the sky, not Zeus...and worms and rats not appearing out of nowhere...and stars being balls of gas burning millions of miles away, not holes in heaven...and the brain being the center of the nervous system, not the heart...and lead poisoning being able to kill you...and cigarettes being bad for you, and everything else ever discovered or invented, but still! They're wrong! These global warming people are the same tree hugging hippies that said DDT was bad for the environment back in the 70s and 80s!
They're all a bunch of liberal crackpots who have a political agenda, so who wants to listen to them? It is almost exclusively believed by left wing bleeding-heart liberals who are influenced by rich environmental lobby groups and opposed to the economy and anyone with a job. One of these bleeding heart socialist hippies, Al Gore, has made a propaganda video regarding global warming entitled An Inconvenient Truth which uses heartless fear-mongering, and all kinds of heartless, cruel, un-American facts in an attempt to get people to consume less and sabotage the American economy, culminating in Ford going out of business, which will mean that the terrorists will win. Republicans would never use this type of fear mongering for political gain, never! So stop criticizing us, after all, you don't want the terrorists to come get you, right?"
Climate change is natural, this is a fact I'm afraid.
On a very semantic point, you are correct, in so much as H. sapiens is just another species of animals.
But, as I'm pretty sure that a semantic point is not the one you were making, you're quite incorrect to say that it's fact. This is why we have a word that specifically describes humanity's effects on things: "anthropogenic"; it avoids such pointless ambiguity.
To say that the currently observed climatic change is not related to anthropogenic activity is about as sensible as saying that you don't need oxygen to breathe. Perhaps you could try that for a few minutes and see how you get on? After all, it's only scientists that worked out that we as humans apparently need oxygen to survive.
I'll repeat - you are as a layperson entitled to your opinion. You're not, however, entitled to your own facts.
You live at 43° latitude. Your experiences with solar will be completely different from most on this forum.
Euan Mearns suggests that Scottish solar panels may not produce in their lifetime the energy used in their manufacture.
http://euanmearns.com/solar-scotland/
They are only cost effective because of the subsidies from other consumers and like wind depend on the grid sup[plying nuclear and fossil fuel power when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.
Do read on to the comments on that Scottish solar article - lots of really interesting and informative stuff.
They are only cost effective because of the subsidies from other consumers
Any idea how most of the older power stations were built, was it a big government corporation. Because coal, oil and gas are all around us people assume it's been really cheap to get all that infrastructure in place.
Pricing today may be an issue but as with most tech manufacturing costs go down over time, same can't be said for carbon based fuels. To assume governments will be able to keep energy cheap into the future is a big gamble.
Fossil fuels are made economic by the fact that we treat irreplacable natural resources as being free, and the environmental costs as being everyone else's problem. If the predictions of warming/climate change come even a little bit true, the economic and social damage will be... well, unbudgetable. We don't even really take into account the past, known environmental costs
"Alarmist" and "Exagerated claims" - and that is just what the climate scientists say!
Given our ignorance of what is going on in the oceans and large parts of the land mass, the definitive way in which arguments for our role in global warming is framed is quite extraordinary. And that is from scientists, bizarre. At least it puts humans at the centre of things....how terrible if we were only marginal players
While large sums are spent on inefficient alternatives, less money is spent on issues that cause far more deaths and hardship - starvation, poor water, sanitation. Strange priorities.
Alternatives are often very efficient, they have to be to compete with the throw-away alternative that is fossil fuels. It's a bit like using throw away plastic plates. Convenient and cost effective in the short term but using crockery and washing it is a more cost-effective, long-term solution.
Given the level of unemployment in Europe, one of the greatest inefficiencies is not making efficient use of human resources. People don't insulate because it costs too much, it costs too much because gas and electricity are cheap and lightly taxed but labour heavily taxed. In France labour is taxed at over 100% but electricity at only 22%. Change macro economic policy to reflect the benefit to society of energy saving and the harm caused by fossil fuels, and you can create an economic boom while cutting CO2 emissions.
While large sums are spent on inefficient alternatives, less money is spent on issues that cause far more deaths and hardship - starvation, poor water, sanitation. Strange priorities.
Classic whatabouterry.
If the climate does change then starvation, poor water and sanitation could be something that we all face.
