Official Global Warming thread (merged)

[emainvol]

Jesus gs, you are ancient.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

 

[fl0at]

Hydrogen is the most abundant element, it shouldn't be all that hard to collect and use.

It isn't necessarily abundance that is the issue, it is the state at which it exists, primarily.

If, and this may be untrue and am only using as an example, the majority of Hydrogen exists in a stored state, such as water, then there must be a process by which the hydrogen is released to either free hydrogen or H2.

The problem is doing this efficiently enough. If the energy requirement necessary to remove H2 from the oxygen in water is equal to or greater than the energy gained from utilizing the liberated H2, then the system is inefficient.

We must further have a form of energy necessary to provide for the release of H2. Use of photosynthetic organisms modified for this very process would allow us to use the energy stored within sunlight to achieve the release of free hydrogen or coupled hydrogen.

So, I don't see abundance as the issue. I see the state at which hydrogen exists as the issue. And if the majority is bound to other elements, then the hydrogen must be oxidized.

 

[utgibbs]

Good comment on the hydrogen power. I'm still convinced that it's the future of personal transport.Posted via VolNation Mobile

Certainly it is the only viable source that combines "hot" refuelling, range, and power - in other words, the only technology that looks like an internal combustion engine.

Costs are still far too high, and in this case, it is a material input - platinum. Here's a cost everyone MUST pass on to the consumer. (Although there are several financing schemes being developed at Johnson Matthey to offset this) Despite a tremendous amount of energy and effort over the past 20 years, and despite enormous advances in metal thrifting over that time, your average family fuel cell car will still require ~40g of Pt (well over a troy ounce). The other issues are esoteric, and possess the minds of the people who work in the field every day, but they are just as important and very real.

Daimler, Ford, Toyota et al. are committed to seeing a significant fraction of ZEVs in their respective fleets by 2050. For the North American market, a fuel cell vehicle is the only substitute. However, I think Europe and the rest of the world would happily move to electric cars. Marketing could train the new consumer to like it.

Hydrogen production though is terribly inefficient, especially from "green" production. Right now, hydrogen is made by reforming hydrocarbons, so, it would be better to just burn the natural gas in your engine. Electrolysis of water, of course, is the holy grail. Again, a terribly inefficient process - the well-to-wheel efficiency for a fuel cell vehicle using today's electricity infrastructure, well, makes the coal lobby very happy, and makes BP look like one of the good guys. Only in a grid generated by nuclear (PERHAPS coal with sequestration, if sequestration works) is a hydrogen economy even remotely workable.

Hydrogen is incompatible with our current NG infrastructure, we would have to completely retool.

The "Hydrogen Economy" is an elegant, scientifically beautiful, energy system. But I'm not sure it is anything but a beautiful technology for narrow niche applications.

 

[utgibbs]

It isn't necessarily abundance that is the issue, it is the state at which it exists, primarily.

If, and this may be untrue and am only using as an example, the majority of Hydrogen exists in a stored state, such as water, then there must be a process by which the hydrogen is released to either free hydrogen or H2.

The problem is doing this efficiently enough. If the energy requirement necessary to remove H2 from the oxygen in water is equal to or greater than the energy gained from utilizing the liberated H2, then the system is inefficient.

We must further have a form of energy necessary to provide for the release of H2. Use of photosynthetic organisms modified for this very process would allow us to use the energy stored within sunlight to achieve the release of free hydrogen or coupled hydrogen.

So, I don't see abundance as the issue. I see the state at which hydrogen exists as the issue. And if the majority is bound to other elements, then the hydrogen must be oxidized.

Absolutely correct.

I would add that free hydrogen is also incompatible with our current natural gas infrastructure. Although I think the storage issue is overblown - we have perfectly good storage technology today - it still takes up a lot of volume.

It does have a decentralized beauty to it though - every home with a "green" electrolyzer producing energy. Unfortunately, we don't have any "green" electrolyzers. And Capital doesn't like "decentralized beauty."

 

[TennTradition]

GS- Was the no outside energy home using geothermal heat pumps?
Posted via VolNation Mobile

 

[utgibbs]

GS- Was the no outside energy home using geothermal heat pumps?
Posted via VolNation Mobile

I have heard of the Passivhaus standard, and I believe Germany and the UK have several projects planned with it.

I believe they rigorously increase the thermal conductivity coefficient everywhere (including lining the foundation, triple screening windows). I believe they have a massive "thermal store" in the house as well. I forget what this is exactly, but it keeps the house warm when the sun goes down.

From what I've heard, a winter home in Germany stays around 21C without any additional inputs, and I believe it adds about 50% to the building costs of a home.

Working from memory here; didn't google.

 

[VolsNSkinsFan]

wouldnt the opposite be happening if the earth was warming?

657 New Islands Discovered Worldwide - Yahoo! News

The Earth has 657 more barrier islands than previously thought, according to a new global survey by researchers from Duke University and Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C.

The researchers identified a total of 2,149 barrier islands worldwide using satellite images, topographical maps and navigational charts. The new total is significantly higher than the 1,492 islands identified in a 2001 survey conducted without the aid of publicly available satellite imagery.

 

[BeecherVol]

If I was youins I'd get my dipper gourd out thar and dip me up some of that stuff!! :loco:

Gourd? They was backin up trucks with 55 gallon drums from wall to wall.

Heard most were locals from the Joelton Scottsboro area.

 

[TennTradition]

wouldnt the opposite be happening if the earth was warming?

657 New Islands Discovered Worldwide - Yahoo! News

Not sure what you mean...from the quote you provided, it seems that these are newly discovered because we are using satellite imagery, not 700 newly formed/discovered islands. Do I need to read the article to get your meaning?

Regardless, I do not think that ocean levels are actually dropping at a significant rate at the moment....Anyone have any recent data?
Posted via VolNation Mobile

 

[utvolpj]

you are correct TT

The newly identified barrier islands didn't miraculously appear in the last decade, said study team member Matthew L. Stutz of Meredith. They've long existed but were overlooked or misclassified in past surveys.

 

[VolsNSkinsFan]

yes but wouldnt those islands have disappeared before they were discovered?

or maybe the islands are growing?

 

[utgibbs]

Not sure what you mean...from the quote you provided, it seems that these are newly discovered because we are using satellite imagery, not 700 newly formed/discovered islands. Do I need to read the article to get your meaning?

Regardless, I do not think that ocean levels are actually dropping at a significant rate at the moment....Anyone have any recent data?
Posted via VolNation Mobile

Fourth Assessment Report has sea levels rising at 1.8mm per year from 1961, and a rate of 3.1mm per year for the decade 1993 - 2003. As far as I know, land ice is still melting.

 

[TennTradition]

yes but wouldnt those islands have disappeared before they were discovered?

or maybe the islands are growing?

It depends on how far above sea level these islands are. Tides tend to be several feet, so unless the islands tend to be completely submerged at high tide, rising sea levels from global warming wouldn't be expected to have covered them, IMO.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

 

[gsvol]

Jesus gs, you are ancient.
Posted via VolNation Mobile

You should endeavor to live so long!

Reminds me of one of my kids while in college being asked how old the dad was and the reply; "My dad isn't old, he is ancient."

Thank God for small wonders;

Idaho, Montana Wolves Delisted by Congress | New West Network

A rider in the budget bill, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, returns the legal playing field back to 2009 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had delisted the wolves in Montana and Idaho. Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, chairman of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, attached a similar measure to the House version of the budget bill.

Bet that hacks of the Obama radicals!!

The U S Fish and Wildlife Service has also stated that the wolf population of Minnesotta, Wisconsin, Michigan and one other state should also be delisted as wolf endangered specie area, saying there were over 400 wolves.

It isn't necessarily abundance that is the issue, it is the state at which it exists, primarily.

If, and this may be untrue and am only using as an example, the majority of Hydrogen exists in a stored state, such as water, then there must be a process by which the hydrogen is released to either free hydrogen or H2.

The problem is doing this efficiently enough. If the energy requirement necessary to remove H2 from the oxygen in water is equal to or greater than the energy gained from utilizing the liberated H2, then the system is inefficient.

We must further have a form of energy necessary to provide for the release of H2. Use of photosynthetic organisms modified for this very process would allow us to use the energy stored within sunlight to achieve the release of free hydrogen or coupled hydrogen.

So, I don't see abundance as the issue. I see the state at which hydrogen exists as the issue. And if the majority is bound to other elements, then the hydrogen must be oxidized.

If a farmer with a six grade education can do it then why not anyone else?

I think the trick is to focus on small outfits that work for one dwelling or a few, not huge mega facitities.

The farmer in question got his initial energy input free through the use of small homemade windmills and stored that energy into homemade batteries, (that had been used since 1917), he then captured hydrogen from water and ran everything in his house with the free hydrogen, and also used the hydrogen in his old truck to triple his milage.

One college professor who toured his operation said Lorenzen hadn't invented anything new, he had just put it to practical use.

GS- Was the no outside energy home using geothermal heat pumps?
Posted via VolNation Mobile

Not exactly, depends on what you call geothermal heat pumps.

This homemade outfit was 100' of 3" pvc pipe that was buried 18" and ran horizontally to an inlet that was capped with a cone shaped roof to keep out rain and wire and screen to keep out varmits and insects.

He said it would have been a lot better if he had installed 200' but didn't have the time.

On the inside of the building the pipe came up about 6" and the natural process of heat rising in the building brought in all the air that was needed.

At first I asked what size fan did he use and he explained it was natural circulation, try putting my face over the inlet, when I did, it not only blew my cap off, it blew it about 5' up in the air.

From what I know of geothermal heat pumps being installed now and given tax credits, I think the design is poor and overly expensive.

The ones I'm talking about have a well digger install a hole in the ground several hundred feet deep and then pipes are installed and water is pumped in a close circuit. I assume it works but you are talking about an investment of over $10,000 and there are lots of ways of doing the same at far less than half the cost of what the government is sponsoring by giving tax credits as far as I know.

I read an article in Popular Mechanics many years ago that featured a half dozen working systems that were manufactured by those who were using them.

One house in Maine used very little elctrical energy and had to bring in outside air until the outside temp dipped to 5 degrees.

It was designed like this. On the east and south sides of the house there were greenhouses with lots of plants which generate heat as well as the solar effect also doing the same.

To heat the house and store that captured heat, the air was circulated from the greenhouses into the house and then up to the attic. The attic had clear panels to gather more solar heat and there were double studs in the walls and double joists to support 30 gal clear water bottles that were filled and which absorbed and stored the heat.

Then the air from the attic was pumped down one of the walls through 4" pipes by electrical fans. This was the only thing in the system that required energy being used from outside the system.

Underneath the house and greenhouses there was 4' of pea gravel and the attic air was pumped to the bottom of that and the gravel trapped and held heat also.

Then it naturally circulated back into the greenhouses to repeat the cycle.

I have a friend who is a builder and did something similar, although not so elaborate. He would circulate air one way to heat and the other to cool and figured he had cut his heating and air conditioning costs by 50%.

Gourd? They was backin up trucks with 55 gallon drums from wall to wall.

Heard most were locals from the Joelton Scottsboro area.

Wonder if it already had the additive that keeps one from drinking the stuff??? :unsure:

 

[BeecherVol]

Wonder if it already had the additive that keeps one from drinking the stuff??? :unsure:

Wouldn't stop some of these rascals around here.

 

[fl0at]

Wouldn't stop some of these rascals around here.

I may need to one day track you down... for some shine.


GS: Are you talking about Brown's gas, because I'm not sold on that whole Mason jar hydrogen conversion kit shenanigans that comes up every time gas prices go above $3.25/gal.

 

[gsvol]

I have heard of the Passivhaus standard, and I believe Germany and the UK have several projects planned with it.

I believe they rigorously increase the thermal conductivity coefficient everywhere (including lining the foundation, triple screening windows). I believe they have a massive "thermal store" in the house as well. I forget what this is exactly, but it keeps the house warm when the sun goes down.

From what I've heard, a winter home in Germany stays around 21C without any additional inputs, and I believe it adds about 50% to the building costs of a home.

Working from memory here; didn't google.

Have you heard of Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute??

He had a PHD from Cambridge U at age 21.

Some describe him as 8 of the top 10 energy experts in the world.

If TVA had taken his advice which they paid for way back when, users wouldn't be paying about $5 million a day just for interest on loans we didn't need to make to begin with.

Way back, I think it was in the 70s they built a headquarters building for his institute and he wanted triple pane windows with argon between the panes.

He was astounded that no one made them, so they manufactured their own and installed them in his energy efficient building and used a wood stove to heat but a fire was only needed when the temps dipped to 5% or below.

Someone I knew built a house like that here in Tennessee with the same results.

The RMI has built autos that are made completely from carbon desposit panels which snap together and need no frame, thus greatly reducing the weight of the vehicle and improving gas milage astronomically.

My idea is that it would be a heck of a lot better to let the market determine outcomes rather than having government mandate crap that just doesn't really make sense.

Fourth Assessment Report has sea levels rising at 1.8mm per year from 1961, and a rate of 3.1mm per year for the decade 1993 - 2003. As far as I know, land ice is still melting.

Not that this hasn't happened previously many times in history, nothing to be alarmed about!!

 

[gsvol]

I may need to one day track you down... for some shine.


GS: Are you talking about Brown's gas, because I'm not sold on that whole Mason jar hydrogen conversion kit shenanigans that comes up every time gas prices go above $3.25/gal.

Nope, don't know what you're talking about.

I'm talking about a guy named John Lorenzen.

There are several articles about him on google.

 

[fl0at]

Nope, don't know what you're talking about.

I'm talking about a guy named John Lorenzen.

There are several articles about him on google.

I think it is basically the same concept as the Water 4 Gas thing.

Anybody reproduce his work?

 

[utgibbs]

Have you heard of Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute??

He had a PHD from Cambridge U at age 21.

Some describe him as 8 of the top 10 energy experts in the world.

If TVA had taken his advice which they paid for way back when, users wouldn't be paying about $5 million a day just for interest on loans we didn't need to make to begin with.

Way back, I think it was in the 70s they built a headquarters building for his institute and he wanted triple pane windows with argon between the panes.

He was astounded that no one made them, so they manufactured their own and installed them in his energy efficient building and used a wood stove to heat but a fire was only needed when the temps dipped to 5% or below.

Someone I knew built a house like that here in Tennessee with the same results.

The RMI has built autos that are made completely from carbon desposit panels which snap together and need no frame, thus greatly reducing the weight of the vehicle and improving gas milage astronomically.

My idea is that it would be a heck of a lot better to let the market determine outcomes rather than having government mandate crap that just doesn't really make sense.

Yeah, I'll be honest. Avory is a smart, smart guy, but at the end of the day, he's still just an engineer working on a problem. I find the RMI's flagship "supercar" or whatever they call it, a real failure of imagination.

Yeah, I don't know how much data has been collected on Passivhaus standards yet. I assume they have gone beyond the stage of "urban legend" though.

One question. Why have argon? Surely a vacuum has a higher U?

 

[IPorange]

The volcanoes-sea level talk is showing me how useless it is to have a productive conversation around here with folks that categorically reject science.

Sea level rise and fall have nothing to do with volcanoes breaching the surface, simply because volcanoes can grow very rapidly at times. hell, a cinder cone in Mexico grew from nothing to 1200 feet in a year back in 1943.

 

[gsvol]

I think it is basically the same concept as the Water 4 Gas thing.

Anybody reproduce his work?

Not that I know of, it only takes individuals or
entrepeneurs willing, no one ever denied that
what he did worked or that the technology
wasn't easily reproduced.

You think but will you bother to really find out?

He wasn't trying to market anything.

His dad was producing their own electricity back
in 1917 and Lorenzen said that when they came
around asking if you wanted to hook up to the
electric lines for $3 and no one could turn it down,
his dad told them; "thanks but no thanks, we've
got all the electric we need."

Yeah, I'll be honest. Avory is a smart, smart guy, but at the end of the day, he's still just an engineer working on a problem. I find the RMI's flagship "supercar" or whatever they call it, a real failure of imagination.

Yeah, I don't know how much data has been collected on Passivhaus standards yet. I assume they have gone beyond the stage of "urban legend" though.

One question. Why have argon? Surely a vacuum has a higher U?

How is their car a failure?? All it lacks is someone
willing to reproduce it but then we have government
motors standing in the way and it will be a tragedy
just like the Tucker if no one follows through.

BTW, just a wild guess but I would say that Lovins
credentials way outweigh your own!

The volcanoes-sea level talk is showing me how useless it is to have a productive conversation around here with folks that categorically reject science.

Sea level rise and fall have nothing to do with volcanoes breaching the surface, simply because volcanoes can grow very rapidly at times. hell, a cinder cone in Mexico grew from nothing to 1200 feet in a year back in 1943.

The most useless thing is to try to have an intelligent
discourse with someone who has been brainwashed all
their young life by radical environmentalists who have
everthing to do with political science and very, very
little to do with physical science.

Question:

Do undersea volcanoes have anything at all to do
with oceanic temperatures and co2 levels??

 

[fl0at]

Not that I know of, it only takes individuals or entrepeneurs willing, no one ever denied that what he did worked or that the technology wasn't easily reproduced.

You think but will you bother to really find out?

If he didn't publish his methods, and/or nobody has copied or reproduced his work, I wouldn't be able to compare it.

You can get the Water 4 Gas manual off a torrent (ie: pirate it) and decide for yourself. You'd know more about Lorenzen than I would.

 

[gsvol]

If he didn't publish his methods, and/or nobody has copied or reproduced his work, I wouldn't be able to compare it.

You can get the Water 4 Gas manual off a torrent (ie: pirate it) and decide for yourself. You'd know more about Lorenzen than I would.

They had a blurb on him on TV about 20 years ago.

He was legit.

 

[gsvol]

Say Hello to Cheaper Hydrogen Fuel Cells

In a paper published today in Science, Los
Alamos researchers Gang Wu, Christina Johnston,
and Piotr Zelenay, joined by researcher Karren
More of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, describe
the use of a platinum-free catalyst in the
cathode of a hydrogen fuel cell. Eliminating
platinum—a precious metal more expensive than
gold—would solve a significant economic
challenge that has thwarted widespread use of
large-scale hydrogen fuel cell systems.

Polymer-electrolyte hydrogen fuel cells convert
hydrogen and oxygen into electricity. The
cells can be enlarged and combined in series
for high-power applications, including
automobiles. Under optimal conditions, the
hydrogen fuel cell produces water as a "waste"
product and does not emit greenhouse gasses.