Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[Brad Sallows]

There are few sources of amusement greater than the relative handful of people in government and civil service offices trying to outguess and get inside the decision cycle of markets.

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Just as a side note I have two favourite "Environmentalist-driven stories":
1)  Rio de Janeiro where the sugar-derived ethanol (which replaced gasoline) has turned everything into a yellow haze (as M.I.T. predicted by the way).
2)  How Europe's desire for Palm Oil as a "renewable fuel" has resulted in hundreds of thousands of acres of virgin rainforest being cut down [addition]in Indonesia[/addition] in order to grow Palm plantations.

The fact that local environmentalists still trumpet both cases as success benchmark in the fight against evil fossil fuels clearly demonstrates both how arrogant and how disattached from reality they have become.


Matthew.

 

[a_majoor]

If this development pans out, Carbon Dioxide will become a valuable raw material. Real science vs Kyoto consensus.......

http://digg.com/environment/Turning_carbon_dioxide_into_fuel_using_solar_power

Turning carbon dioxide into fuel - using solar power

Submitted by News on 18 April 2007 - 12:20pm. Energy

Turning a greenhouse gas into a clean energy fuel is the Holy Grail of energy research. UC San Diego chemists have a prototype they think is an important milestone.

Their device captures energy from the sun, converts it to electrical energy and "splits" carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen.

Obviously carbon monoxide in and of itself is not great either but millions of pounds of it are used each year to manufacture chemicals including detergents and plastics. It can also be converted into liquid fuel.

"The technology to convert carbon monoxide into liquid fuel has been around a long time," said Kubiak. "It was invented in Germany in the 1920s. The U.S. was very interested in the technology during the 1970s energy crisis, but when the energy crisis ended people lost interest. Now things have come full circle because rising fuel prices make it economically competitive to convert CO into fuel." (Interpolation: they are probably referring to the F-T process, where CO and Hydrogen are combined over a catalyst to make hydrocarbon fuels)

The device designed by Kubiak and Sathrum to split carbon dioxide utilizes a semiconductor and two thin layers of catalysts. It splits carbon dioxide to generate carbon monoxide and oxygen in a three-step process. The first step is the capture of solar energy photons by the semiconductor. The second step is the conversion of optical energy into electrical energy by the semiconductor. The third step is the deployment of electrical energy to the catalysts. The catalysts convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide on one side of the device and to oxygen on the other side.

Because electrons are passed around in these reactions, a special type of catalyst that can convert electrical energy to chemical energy is required Researchers in Kubiak's laboratory have created a large molecule with three nickel atoms at its heart that has proven to be an effective catalyst for this process.

Choosing the right semiconductor is also critical to making carbon dioxide splitting practical say the researchers. Semiconductors have bands of energy to which electrons are confined. Sunlight causes the electrons to leap from one band to the next creating an electrical energy potential The energy difference between the bands—the band gap—determines how much solar energy will be absorbed and how much electrical energy is generated.

Kubiak and Sathrum initially used a silicon semiconductor to test the merits of their device because silicon is well-studied. However, silicon absorbs in the infrared range and the researchers say it is "too wimpy" to supply enough energy. The conversion of sunlight by silicon supplied about half of the energy needed to split carbon dioxide, and the reaction worked if the researchers supplied the other half of the energy needed.

They are now building the device using a gallium-phosphide semiconductor. It has twice the band gap of silicon and absorbs more energetic visible light. Therefore, they predict that it will absorb the optimal amount of energy from the sun to drive the catalytic splitting of carbon dioxide.

"This project brings together many scientific puzzle pieces," said Sathrum. "Quite a bit of work has been done on each piece, but it takes more science to mesh them all together. Bringing all the pieces together is the part of the problem we are focused on."

Source: University of California - San Diego.

Technorati Tags: Energy

 

[Flip]

Just to be clear, are you talking about a tank with lots of water? Warm water releases C02. So yes, I accept your results.

So with the increase of manmade CO2 and the CO2 released by the earth's water and the CO2 released by melting arctic tundra. We, as citizen of the earth, are conducting not only the world’s largest uncontrolled experiment, but also the world’s most dangerous experiment.

eerickso,

Sorry - you don't get it.
In my fish tank - super basic illustration that it is, As temperature rises the CO2 output
from all the little beasties from bacteria on up increases. There is some compensation from
any plants that exist but they lag rather badly in their net O2 output as temperature continues to rise. 
If you notice the difference between spring in your garden and summer, The plants grow really well until it gets hot in the summer.  Once summers' heat hits however, the
plants' metabolic processes don't speed up as much as the aphids and caterpillars in the yard.

June is glorious and August is blight. (CO2 absorption is driven by light.)
CO2 production ( even in plants ) is driven by temperature.

By the Bye I heard on the CBC today that Ontario will NOT be putting scrubbers onto their
remaining coal fired power plants.  The reason given was that is was too expensive,
and it did nothing about greenhouses gases anyway.

I'm personally horrified.
Acid rain, smog and other pollution is OK to the liberal government but greenhouse gases
get their knickers in a twist.  We ALL KNOW what comes from coal fired plants.
I would guess we all agree that it's bad and should not be tolerated.
We should all know that in Ontario Smog kills people.
But that's Ok because were all more concerned with this theoretical thing that
cannot be proven to be a threat.

Exactly the kind of logic that scares me the most.(environmentally speaking)

Here's a link to a Sun Column that sorta says the same thing
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Goldstein_Lorrie/2007/04/26/4130711.html

 

[Kirkhill]

So while we are on the subject of unintended consequences:  Behold Biofuels

They are driving up ALL food prices, depriving the third world of staple foods, cattle of feed and Coca Cola of sugar and sweeteners.  It will result in deforestation of the rain forest as poor countries attempt to cash in resulting in reduced carbon sinks - and the carbon of which the biofuels are made will STILL be released to the atmosphere.  And to top it all off the energy-mass balance still means that it costs more energy to produce the biofuel than it produces.

EU green targets will damage rainforests
By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Last Updated: 5:51am BST 27/04/2007

European union green fuel targets will accelerate the destruction of rainforests in South-East Asia and threaten the habitat of endangered species, such as the orang-utan.
   
In March EU leaders agreed to set a binding climate change target to make biofuel - energy sources made from plant material - account for 10 per cent of all Europe's transport fuels by 2020.

But the European Commission has admitted that the objective, which aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions, may have the unintended consequence of speeding up the destruction of tropical rainforests and peatlands in South-East Asia - actually increasing, not reducing, global warming.

European consumption of plant-based fuels will soar from around three million tons at present to more than 30 million tons in 2010, driving a boom in imports of cheap biofuels.

Europe is still years away from self-sufficiency in biofuels produced from straw and other waste vegetation. As a result, demand for cheap imports of fuels, such as palm oil, is expected to soar.

Countries such as Indonesia have already begun planning an increase in the production of palm oil, a development campaigners fear will see more rainforest fall to the axe and rare peat soil burned.

......
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/27/wgreen27.xml

Ethanol Demand Threatens Food Prices
Rising corn prices are already affecting everything from the cost of tortillas in Mexico City to the cost of producing eggs in the United States.

The recent rise in corn prices--almost 70 percent in the past six months--caused by the increased demand for ethanol biofuel has come much sooner than many agriculture economists had expected.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, this year the country is going to use 18 to 20 percent of its total corn crop for the production of ethanol, and by next year that will jump to 25 percent. And that increase, says Marshall Martin, an agriculture economist at Purdue University, "is the main driver behind the price increase for corn."

The jump in corn prices is already affecting the cost of food. The most notable example: in Mexico, which gets much of its corn from the United States, the price of corn tortillas has doubled in the past year, according to press reports, setting off large protest marches in Mexico City.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18173/

Oh, and by they way - those nifty high efficiency, low heat fluorescent light bulbs?  Be prepared for your heating bills to go up when you switch to them.  Those traditional incandescent light bulbs, emitting heat right where you are sitting reading, typing, watching TV, having a beer, are helping to keep you warm meaning your furnace doesn't have to run as much.  Also because the heat is right where you are you can live with the thermostat a little lower in the rest of  the house.  Without that local heating then you will likely be raising the overall temperature of the house. That always assumes that your forced air circulation system is working well and all your vents and ducts are well placed.

As well, those lights which are supposed to reduce your lighting bill and last longer thereby justifying their additional expense - the long life only applies if you leave the light on all the time.  Normal bedside use reduced the 5 year life expectancy to 1 year.

But.............we're all Green now.  All Hail Gaia.

 

[Kirkhill]

If this development pans out, Carbon Dioxide will become a valuable raw material. Real science vs Kyoto consensus.......

http://digg.com/environment/Turning_carbon_dioxide_into_fuel_using_solar_power

(Interpolation: they are probably referring to the F-T process, where CO and Hydrogen are combined over a catalyst to make hydrocarbon fuels)

The device designed by Kubiak and Sathrum to split carbon dioxide utilizes a semiconductor and two thin layers of catalysts. It splits carbon dioxide to generate carbon monoxide and oxygen in a three-step process. The first step is the capture of solar energy photons by the semiconductor. The second step is the conversion of optical energy into electrical energy by the semiconductor. The third step is the deployment of electrical energy to the catalysts. The catalysts convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide on one side of the device and to oxygen on the other side.

Alternately Flip can put his aquarium out in the sun and be paid to bubble CO2 through it.  The algae will take care of the rest and produce a reusable fuel.

 

[vangemeren]

So while we are on the subject of unintended consequences:  Behold Biofuels

They are driving up ALL food prices, depriving the third world of staple foods, cattle of feed and Coca Cola of sugar and sweeteners.  It will result in deforestation of the rain forest as poor countries attempt to cash in resulting in reduced carbon sinks - and the carbon of which the biofuels are made will STILL be released to the atmosphere.  And to top it all off the energy-mass balance still means that it costs more energy to produce the biofuel than it produces.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/27/wgreen27.xml

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18173/

Oh, and by they way - those nifty high efficiency, low heat fluorescent light bulbs?  Be prepared for your heating bills to go up when you switch to them.  Those traditional incandescent light bulbs, emitting heat right where you are sitting reading, typing, watching TV, having a beer, are helping to keep you warm meaning your furnace doesn't have to run as much.  Also because the heat is right where you are you can live with the thermostat a little lower in the rest of  the house.  Without that local heating then you will likely be raising the overall temperature of the house. That always assumes that your forced air circulation system is working well and all your vents and ducts are well placed.

As well, those lights which are supposed to reduce your lighting bill and last longer thereby justifying their additional expense - the long life only applies if you leave the light on all the time.  Normal bedside use reduced the 5 year life expectancy to 1 year.

But.............we're all Green now.  All Hail Gaia.

That is why I'm a big proponent of just cutting consumption. Habits save a lot more energy than switching technologies if that choice is available.

While you did point out that your heating bills would rise by switching to CFs, the flip side is that by keeping your incandescent light bulbs your air conditioning bills would be higher
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls

Another thing you have to consider is that CFs contain Mercury, so they are not supposed to end up in the regular garbage.
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/energystar/english/consumers/questions-answers.cfm#dispose

Do you have a source for your last statement because I could not find anything about that.

Cheers

Jack

 

[Kirkhill]

Which one?  They paean to Gaia or the life expectancy of the CFLs?

If you are talking about the CFLs that is from personal experience.  A 5 year life was promised if the bulb wasn't turned on and off frequently.  I don't consider a bedside lamp as being one that is turned on and off excessively but after only 1 year my 5 year bulbs were dead. Both lamps (wife's and mine) expired within a couple of weeks of each other.  My conclusion is that the 5 year life can only be achieved if the number of times that the bulb is switched on and off is reduced towards zero.

Cheers.

 

[vangemeren]

The only reason I ask about the lightbulbs is that I've had a completely different experience with mine, they've lasted me for 4 years and I can assure you they've been turned on and off many a time and not just continually running.

 

[Kirkhill]

Point taken re anecdotal evidence.  Unfortunately our experiences differ and I generally don't go back to the store that sells me inferior product.

 

[Flip]

Kirkhill - you were stealing my thoughts! - It's a conspiracy.

For about 9 months of a year we run heat our homes here in the great white north.

Most of the bulbs we run are inside and contributing to heating the house.

If we save 50W on the light bulb it will cost us 50W from our hydro
or however we heat the house.

Net Greenhouse gas  savings - Very nearly zero!
( based on my most of the bulbs - most of the time model)
I think this is a dumb idea. Sorry Mr Baird.

The new technologies to watch for are LED and cold cathode flourescent
devices.  The LEDS have a huge carbon footprint in manufacturing
and the cold cathode contains no mercury (I think). But the cold cathode
lasts about as long as the others.

Cheap energy has always been the foundation of our standard of living.
I think we can expect a decline in the standard of living for everyone
on the planet.  Nuclear energy is probably our most credible alternative.
Try to sell that to the green crowd.

 

[Kirkhill]

Kirkhill - you were stealing my thoughts! - It's a conspiracy.

Most 'umble apologies  >

PS I also agree with you on nuclear power although I do have to admit that if people would just stop screaming about the end of the world I would be forced to admit that industry can find ways to reduce operating costs and increase efficiencies thereby reducing consumption and waste and pollution.  But that would be to let the market take its course and where would the fun be in that?

 

[retiredgrunt45]

  This is what our environment minister started out with, before he revealed the governments new environmental plan yesterday.

Banning incandescent light bulbs by 2010, in favour of the new more efficient compact fluorescent bulbs seems to be the only concrete evidence of any plan that I could see. Its business as usual otherwise. Oh and coming up with a plan for industry to let the government know how much CO2 they put into the air yearly, they must cut CO2 output levels by 6% a year until 2010 and then by 2% every year after. But to do this, industry has some mathematical formula they must use to figure out the end result. The government left the industries to police themselves, hello, I can do all kinds of wonderful things with math and numbers, like maybe shaving a few numbers of here and there and voila, I have a winning number. That's like leaving the fox in the hen house overnight and thinking all your chickens will be still there in the morning.
I was under the impression that a parliamentary committee had been formed and had hashed out a true plan, not this half hearted of the shelf crap. But it seems that Mr Baird either didn't see it or he just ignored it.

Many Canadians have already made the switch to the new bulbs, so that's not a new initiative. What about monies for new energy development, more fuel efficient cars, raising the gas guzzler tax on those big dinosaur SUV's that the auto industry are still selling. Raising the tax break for people who purchase fuel efficient cars.

I support the conservatives, but please don't insult my intelligence by putting this in front of me and telling me its a good plan. To me, its doing the same thing the Liberals did for decade, nothing and then patting themselves on the back, for a job well done.

Mr Baird i implore you to get up from the oil barons table and go have a chat with the environmentalists and come up with a plan that will at the very least, have some semblance of a plan that will actually work. And put in place some policing to ensure industry is kept accountable to the new initiatives and please have the teacher "check their math".

 

[stealthylizard]

The Tories already announced a tax on gas guzzlers in their budget, as well as a skimpy rebate for those who buy hybrid powered vehicles.  There was a committee formed to make recommendations of change to the previous clean air act.  I imagine it was scrapped because they went overboard, making over 100 amendments to it, then having the gall to expect the Conservatives to pass it.  I don't like the forced switch to CF lighting myself.  Do you really think people will start saving their new light bulbs and take them to a specialized recycling plant to safely dispose of them?  Probably not.  They will end up in the landfill, leaking mercury into the ground, trading one problem for another. 

The difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives this time around is that the Conservatives actually put something forward in writing, unlike the Liberal party that just signed an agreement and never had any intentions of abiding by it.  In some ways, I am just as displeased by the lack of penalties for not following the new Act, but relieved at the same time, being an oilfield employee.  Maybe now I can return to work, seeing as how the industry knows what effects this will have on their operations.  It was because of all this, waiting on legislation in the first place, that I have been laid off since the end of January.  Our clients were waiting to find out what was going on so put the contracts on hold.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I can't remember where, but some blogger posted a back-of-the-envelope calculation to support his hypothesis that there may already be enough manufacturing capacity for the new bulbs to support our requirements and that the rate of adoption is already high enough.  His point is that the bulbs last so long that after the initial buying surge there will be a trough in sales for a few years while the first generation of bulbs runs down its life span.  If the hypothesis is correct, we are not doing the market any favours by providing additional incentives (subsidies, bans) to increase manufacturing capacity right now.  It should be self-evident that for a long-lifed replacement product, it is better to allow it to be phased in gradually.  A handful of years may not be enough.

 

[GAP]

incandescent bulbs will not be banned. At present they produce 10% light 90% heat. These specifications are what is being banned.

They have until 2012 to bring up the specs to 30-40 % light and 60-70 % heat (where the fluorescent is now). At those ratings the incandescent is good to go.

 

[Kat Stevens]

I can't remember where, but some blogger posted a back-of-the-envelope calculation to support his hypothesis that there may already be enough manufacturing capacity for the new bulbs to support our requirements and that the rate of adoption is already high enough.  His point is that the bulbs last so long that after the initial buying surge there will be a trough in sales for a few years while the first generation of bulbs runs down its life span.  If the hypothesis is correct, we are not doing the market any favours by providing additional incentives (subsidies, bans) to increase manufacturing capacity right now.  It should be self-evident that for a long-lifed replacement product, it is better to allow it to be phased in gradually.  A handful of years may not be enough.

Call me cynical ("no way!" I hear you shout),  but as soon as regular bulbs are banned/scowled at in the grocery lineup, we will see a marked decrease in the life expectancy of the new bulbs.  My house is fully converted to the new guys, except a ceiling fixture with a dimmer that is near to impossible to find the mini bulbs for.

 

[Flip]

As I've mentioned before - heat might not be so bad.
Most of us pay money to heat the house-most of the time.
If the heat doesn't come from the light bulbs it comes from somewhere else.
If you heat with electricity, the cost is the same.

For all the bulbs in doors and in the winter it's a zero sum effort.
I would guess that's 80% of the bulb use.

Then there's the mercury.  A little mercury in your eco-system
can make the forecasts of global warming etc. purely redundant.

An entirely new incandescent technology like those little quartz buggers
made by Phillips would be nice. (my lamp of choice)

Still not a huge fan of flourescents.

Super high intensity LEDs are nice but expensive. But again these are a variation on the flourescent theme.

If you look at the spectral output of a flourescent bulb, it's very
limited in breadth. That is, a chandelier or you wife's diamond will
look like something that came from the ice tray in the freezer.

Incadescent bulbs provide all of the wavelengths in some measure and
color up things very nicely.

If you ever try to paint or photograph anything under flourescents a
ban on incandescents is not good news.

I don't think this is one of Baird's better ideas.

If you are right GAP, and I suspect you are, I have no problem with it.  

 

[Kunu]

As I've mentioned before - heat might not be so bad.
Most of us pay money to heat the house-most of the time.
If the heat doesn't come from the light bulbs it comes from somewhere else.
If you heat with electricity, the cost is the same.

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that the most expensive way to heat a house is by pushing electricity through bigass resistors.  ;D

Also, I believe the main reason most people chuck things like CF bulbs in the trash instead of taking them to the depot is the whole inconvenience of finding where the depot is (which is inevitably different for each product), fitting in the awkward hours they are open into their schedules, and actually going to whatever out of the way industrial area they happen to be in.  Now if people could simply drop used bulbs, etc. off at the local grocery store or Crappy Tire, perhaps with a deposit reward, do you think as many would be let go into le garbage?

 

[Flip]

Or better yet,..............

Make the CFs so they last in the first place! ;D

Any place where they have Hydro for heat, 50W == 50W from a heater.