What Do We Think About Climate Change

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by Pericles, Feb 19, 2008.

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  1. Knut Sand
    Joined: Apr 2003
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    Location: Kristiansand, Norway

    Knut Sand Senior Member

    Well, I don't plan to waste too much of my time considering Hansens reputation.

    regardless of what BushCo or Hansen&Friends mean,

    I've come up with a pretty strong feeling about sea temperatures:
    Great Barrier reef ; higher temperatures
    Antarctica Sea Ice; decreasing
    Antarctica land ice; Increasing
    Glaciers; Mostly decreasing
    Arctic sea ice; Decreasing (thinning at least).
    Sea temp; Norway; Increasing.
    On the average; an increased sea/ water temperature.
    (And that takes a serious unbalance in the heat input/ loss).

    Weather; A bit more of it....
    (I mean; the last 24 hours; 50 cm of heavy snow in Oslo (more to come...), in my opinion it figures with colder places (here) gets more rain/ snow, while warmer places just gets dryer. (and to some of you; some snow, is a proof/ statement that its getting colder....; ok, well; then it gotta come from somewhere anyway, dont it???), and rain... we rarely had landslides around here earlier, some pretty big rock falls, yes, but landslides...?)

    Add to this; we fire up some litres of fuel and some kg's of coal. Hydrocarbons plus O2 will turn out to heat, energy, water and CO2...

    We does that at a measurable scale.

    For years and years....

    CO2 has its physical properties, that cant be, in my opinion, talked or argued away from. It has insulation capasities, it acts as a greenhouse gas.

    And well; we can argue sunspots, CO2 level been here earlier (but probably not as our civilasation remembers it, anyway), and cosmic rays, water vapour....

    I also do not argue to the fact that we probably at the present time, have not the full picture of what is or is not happening. In my opinion the best thing that can happen is it that we may never find this out....

    But as some wiser person earlier stated; this is a full scale experiment we'll only be able to run once.... (at least something like this).

    Am I a chicken to say better safe than sorry? Yes, Probably, but anyway, I have the looks to carry it gracefully, (Sexy AND intelligent).:p

    You can dream.....:p
     
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  2. Knut Sand
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    Location: Kristiansand, Norway

    Knut Sand Senior Member

    Is this a way to pick on the man's arguments?

    Seem more like going for the man, not the ball,

    I admit, i did that playing left back, football, as a tiiiny kid.
    I grew up, settled for underwater rugby, the trick there was front attack hold the ball against the man, as long as the man didn't drop the ball the ref, didn't blow the whistle, and well, it was difficult to drop as you hold both the ball and the man... they got pretty exhaused.... (on the other hand, there was this team of (really big) fellows from some tropical paradise, they could stay down for looong...That was like getting run over by a flock of trains...). :rolleyes:
     
  3. masalai
    Joined: Oct 2007
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    Location: cruising, Australia

    masalai masalai

    Well your avatar has, sexy as in ****** up? and a cyborg gent made by "Intel"? - not so promising?, Ahhhh but can one argue of the gracefulness of a flying bird or swimming dolphin? - - - I will support and agree with the "Chicken philosophy" - - always better to err on the side of caution and be safe rather than rash/blind/deaf/sorry etc....

    My apologies Knut but the words and my mood lent to this silly response in play.... :D:D:D:D

    Now I have lost track of all topics - so will just return to "drivel" and "Global Politics" and wait... :D:p:p:p
     
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  4. Knut Sand
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    Location: Kristiansand, Norway

    Knut Sand Senior Member


    Wot???? Silly response???
    You naughty/ ignorant man!
    Education is surely needed!!!

    Go wash your keyboard!!!! NOW!!!! Readjust glasses!!!

    cyborg gent made by "Intel"?​


    Man, you'r.... illiterate (did I spell that correctly... ****....)

    CORTO!!!
    CORTO MALTESE!!!!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corto_Maltese

    This is COMICS, pretty serious stuff!!!
    Like; Asterix & Obelix, Donald, Mikey mouse, Spirit.... There's some education in place here, the drawings of Hugo Pratt is.... pure art, check it out. http://images.google.com/imgres?img...microsoft:no:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGLJ_en&sa=N
    (3rd picture there, take a look at it, the blue boat..) Hugo Pratt is for comics what Rosa was for Donald.



    Man, Mas, I thought you came from a home with furnitures....

    Anyway I'm still sexy.....

    For the art, check this googlelink:
    http://images.google.com/images?nds...rlz=1I7GGLJ_en&q=corto maltese&start=147&sa=N
     
  5. Jimbo1490
    Joined: Jun 2005
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    Location: Orlando, FL

    Jimbo1490 Senior Member


    That's the rationale that's offered, we all know. But this is not how it will work in practice AT ALL. There's several BILLION people on the planet right now that wish to modernize their existence. They will need power. The alternatives to burning 'fossil' fuels (or a renewable hydrocarbon) are all bad. Burning wood to heat homes and cook will always pollute more than even the dirtiest coal-fired electric plant. It's just a fact. If you try to prevent the undeveloped world from achieving electrification in the name of carbon cuts, all you will succeed in doing is ensuring that they continue to burn wood instead.

    As I've said repeatedly, ALL carbon cutting proposals are a self-defeating 'fool's errand' promoted for ulterior motives. They will have no detectable effect on global climate, so your 'better safe than sorry' rational is also moot. Even the most optimistic scientists agree that until the cuts reach at least 50% of current output, they will have no effect whatsoever, and there is simply not a shred of a realistic plan anywhere to effect a cut of this kind.

    Then if we agree in five years time that the climate system really is dominated by negative feedbacks for water vapor (a highly likely scenario, given the current state of the science), then ALL carbon cutting schemes will have amounted to a program of completely pointless self-inflicted pain.

    Jimbo
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2009
  6. masalai
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    masalai masalai

    Ahhhgh Jimbo, I am not, and I do not think I have (except to stir) bounced or supported CO2 and instead focus on the pointlessness of the debate as other things will force the issue such as:-
    Depleted oil,
    Depleted fisheries,
    Shortage of potable water,
    Over-population, - - - - all of which tend to amplify each other and create a greater problem for the other issues and the timeframe is in the 5, 10 or 15 years and not likely much longer at current aspirations/growth and expectations of degradation. Climate will not likely change much in that timeframe, but the direction should be abundantly clear by then....
     
  7. Boston

    Boston Previous Member

    best thing Ive heard so far is better safe than sorry
    we need to develop better fuels anyway
    might as well do it now and quit with the argument that if you put carage maker out of business they wont be able to learn something new

    I gotta go with Knut on this one
    its been argued to death and there is no gettin around it
    co2 has insulating qualities
     
  8. Boston

    Boston Previous Member

    hey how about if we argue this from a slightly different angle

    sounds nuts but Im talking to the alcohol group about seaweed for feedstock in cellulosic processing
    could be easy cheep fuel except for the fracturing and distilling phase which would require some propane
    viability depends on yield which can be for high sugar content feedstock like cane or fruit

    I was thinkin of a on board distilling device that could produce fuel from seaweed
    would save on co2 and burn cleaner and cooler
    now granted it has a lower btu value but its cheep if the feed stock is free and the yield is high enough to offset the supplementary fuel by some reasonable amount
    besides seaweed has a fairly high sugar content if I remember
     
  9. masalai
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    masalai masalai

    Something similar is being done in Aussy using carefully selected algai and other "bugs" which do the whole process to oil and another which uses the algal photosynthesis and another process to go direct to electricity.... needs a large collection area so would work well in desert / sunny regions or harvested from the sea surface after "seeding" :D:D:D

    Cant remember where I saw that but I think it was a university in S-E Queensland or Northern NSW?
     
  10. rasorinc
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    rasorinc Senior Member

    Anything I can distill I like. Keep working on this idea. Can a composting toilet produce enough methane to distill something?
     
  11. masalai
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    masalai masalai

    Not unless you are running a medium sized intensive piggery (1 to 200 sows), then you would get all your internal energy needs, but smell like a pigfarmer.... :D:D:D
     
  12. marshmat
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    marshmat Senior Member

    I heard of a company called Solix a while back that was working on something similar, but they were trying to make biodiesel and/or ethanol. http://www.solixbiofuels.com/ I recall they took a bit of flak from the corn farmers, but their yields are so much higher for the same area (reportedly pushing towards 10,000 gal/acre/year compared to ~50 for soy and ~150 for canola)- and they don't need agricultural-quality land, it's a greenhouse-like hydroponic system. The algae are in clear chambers supplied with warm, concentrated carbon dioxide extracted from the exhaust of a nearby conventional power station or industrial facility. The oils produced by the algae are processed into biodiesel and the carbohydrate products are fermented into ethanol. At 10,000 USgal/acre/year, one long-haul transport truck or 20 cars in commuter use could be permanently fed on less than 2 acres of non-food-crop land. This is one that looks like it could be a win-win for everyone, especially if they can meet their ambitious price target of under $2 per US gallon.
     
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  13. Jimbo1490
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    Jimbo1490 Senior Member

    Boston,

    I was watching my local PBS station over the weekend and learning just how close we are to being able to replace gasoline with celluosic ethanol. I had no idea that the process is already 300% more energy efficient than corn ethanol, and is net positive for energy balance (unlike corn ethanol, as has been pointed out many times) and by the time large scale plants are built, will be 10X more energy efficient in production than corn ethanol. This will make it immediately competitive with gasoline, even if the crude oil price stays low. So the resource depletion issue can be defeated. You're still burning a hydrocarbon that devolves to CO2 and water vapor, so no real gain there. But at least you can save the petroleum for the things it's most useful for, like resins and solvents.

    Jimbo
     
  14. masalai
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    masalai masalai

    Now we are thinking. I like the concept of capturing the CO2 & using that alongside a coal or other combustion process to make hydrocarbon liquid fuels for ci (compression ignition) engines, and there are bugs/algae that do that - just a deal of time/research to find and tweak the best strain....
     

  15. Boston

    Boston Previous Member

    Mas actually fish stomach enzymes have been suggested for the celulosic process and solar flash steaming for the fracturing and brewing with the propane held back for the distilling.

    Rasorsnic I have no idea about the toilet but Ild say not and for all the fish we take out of the oceans we might as well put a little something back in, as long as its offshore enough.

    Marshmellow I think that company just came out with a home bio diesel fuel factory runs around ten K and Im not sure what the feedstock was

    Jimmy
    my God man are we actually all in agreement here
    a ******* brilliant day we have all been waiting for

    frankly the alcohol people went berserk when I mentioned using straight seaweed and fish stomach enzymes in the celulosic process along with flash fracturing on a small scale with solar for self a contained limmited production unit

    Ive got a yield chart round here some were
    but the bottom line is cattails works great with a yield of about five times what corn is
    I think
    havnt looked at it in a while

    seaweed should be even better
    maybe ten times

    not sure this will work but
    http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/dspace/bitstream/1957/4938/1/SR%20no.%20645_ocr.pdf
    that pdf pretty much covers what we think we know of classic ethanol production
    ok didnt work
    try that one

    basically you need to fracture the cell structure with a short steam bath and then digest it with enzymes so the yeast can get to it and make the alcohol
    its the efficiency of the enzymes and the ability of the yeast to survive in a high alcohol environment along with the sugar content of the feedstock that determines the yield

    they have come a long way and some of the folks in the alcohol group are real movers and shakers in the industry

    one recently wrote me the following
    I thought the save the world part was a little much but the rest pretty much says it all

    thing is there is NO wasted production costs in seaweed it grows whether you want it to or not
    and you will never have to go far to collect it
    and because it grows so fast it will have a less dense individual cell wall making it perfect for the celullosic process
    I think?
    B
     
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