contrails

delboy wrote:
xt -

The UK Government was very keen on carbon neutral biofuels from crops,
until it was pointed out to them that the land area required would
leave very little for growing food!

Derek Copeland



They now seem enthused about the off-shore windmills now in operation
there. Some said to be many miles offshore.

Brian W

On Jan 10, 11:59*pm, T8 wrote:
Oh, dear...http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...DAVID-ROSE-The...

A good rule of thumb with the Daily Wail is that if it
says X is true then don't merely regard X as unproven, but
do regard not-X as true.

On Jan 10, 11:15*pm, delboy wrote:
On 10 Jan, 20:39, Tom Gardner wrote:



On Jan 10, 8:24*pm, Gary Evans wrote:

MacKay has interesting, simple and plainly valid
"normalisation techniques", *one* of which is:
* - work out the land area we each occupy (in the UK)
* * i.e. area/population, which has to be sufficient for
* * all our needs if we are to be self-sufficient
* - for each use to which that area could be put, how
* * much can we extract
* - what are our current needs, and how could they be
* * realistically changed
Examples are energy from wind, energy from crops,
energy for food, energy for cars or busses or trains
or aircraft etc.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The UK Government was very keen on carbon neutral biofuels from crops,
until it was pointed out to them that the land area required would
leave very little for growing food!

Derek Copeland

MacKay is very good at pointing out such woolly thinking.
Or, more accurately, at pointing out that what you gain on
the swings you lose on the roundabouts.

On Jan 10, 4:59*pm, T8 wrote:
Oh, dear...http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...DAVID-ROSE-The...

Well, if it is the start of an ice age, those transitions tend to
happen extremely fast in geologic terms. Sort of like a sudden
viscous winter storm that doesn't stop for 200,000 years.

In reality, the part of the story about arctic sea ice increasing 27%
since 2007 is typical media rabble rousing. 2007 saw the least arctic
sea ice on record so any subsequent year would likely see an increase
even though the overall trend is steeply down.

Seeing the Arctic ocean clear of ice in summer within the next decade
is still a plausible bet. If it does happen, there will be political
havoc on the right.

On Jan 10, 8:41*pm, Tom Gardner wrote:
On Jan 10, 11:59*pm, T8 wrote:

Oh, dear...http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...DAVID-ROSE-The...

A good rule of thumb with the Daily Wail is that if it
says X is true then don't merely regard X as unproven, but
do regard not-X as true.

:-). Yes, I added that primarily for light amusement. The gal on the
right hand margin in body paint adds a little color to a drab January
day, as well.

Thanks again for the link to MacKay. I'm fascinated by the deftness
with which he breaks these topics down into bits that any sharp
highschool student can grapple with. A superb teacher.

-T8

Tom Gardner wrote:
On Jan 10, 11:59 pm, T8 wrote:

Oh, dear...http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...DAVID-ROSE-The...


A good rule of thumb with the Daily Wail is that if it
says X is true then don't merely regard X as unproven, but
do regard not-X as true.

And along those lines, be sure to read what the US National Snow and Ice
Data Centre in Colorado, a source they reference, says regarding 2009:

"Arctic sea ice extent remains low; 2009 sees third-lowest mark"

"We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades.”

"Arctic sea ice extent at end of December 2009 remained below normal"

"The linear rate of decline for December is now 3.3% per decade."

"Despite the cool summer, the ice remained thin and vulnerable at the
sea ice minimum, with little of the older, thicker ice that used to
characterize much of the Arctic."

"Only 19 percent of the ice cover was over 2 years old, the least in the
satellite record and far below the 1981-2000 average of 52 percent."

No good news there, unfortunately, despite The Mail's spin on it.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

On 10 Jan, 20:47, Tom Gardner wrote:
On Jan 10, 8:24*pm, Gary Evans wrote:

Quote from the book of Gore, chapter 7, verse 3.

Numbers can be our friend if we use them correctly.

As MacKay says ...

In a climate where people don’t understand the numbers, newspapers,
campaigners, companies, and politicians can get away with murder.

We need simple numbers, and we need the numbers to be comprehen-
sible, comparable, and memorable.

With numbers in place, we will be better placed to answer questions
such as these:
1) Can a country like Britain conceivably live on its own renewable
en-
ergy sources?
2) If everyone turns their thermostats one degree closer to the
outside
temperature, drives a smaller car, and switches off phone chargers
when not in use, will an energy crisis be averted?
3) Should the tax on transportation fuels be signi?cantly increased?
4) Should speed-limits on roads be halved?
5) Is someone who advocates windmills over nuclear power stations
“an enemy of the people”?
6) If climate change is “a greater threat than terrorism,” should
govern-
ments criminalize “the glori?cation of travel” and pass laws against
“advocating acts of consumption”?
7) Will a switch to “advanced technologies” allow us to eliminate car-
bon dioxide pollution without changing our lifestyle?
8) Should people be encouraged to eat more vegetarian food?
9) Is the population of the earth six times too big?

Hopefully yes to question 1 and possibly question 7, and no to the
rest.

If AGW is shown to be a scientific myth, I trust that the UK
Government will withdraw Airport Passenger Duty (tax) and other
'green' taxes.

Derek Copeland

On Jan 11, 4:39*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
"Only 19 percent of the ice cover was over 2 years old, the least in the
satellite record and far below the 1981-2000 average of 52 percent."

I don't know about you, but it seems clear to me that if ice was at
the lowest level ever two years ago and has since staged a huge
recovery, then saying that 81% of the the ice cover is less than two
years old doesn't actually add any new information and certainly is
not bad news.

On 11 Jan, 01:37, brian whatcott wrote:
delboy wrote:
xt -

The UK Government was very keen on carbon neutral biofuels from crops,
until it was pointed out to them that the land area required would
leave very little for growing food!

Derek Copeland

They now seem enthused about the off-shore windmills now in operation
there. * Some said to be many miles offshore.

The off-shore windmills will be a hazard to navigation and shipping,
and possibly sea birds.

Windmills on land apparently interfere with Air Traffic Control radar,
as well as making some ridges untenable for gliders and being a
general eyesore (visual pollution of the environment). Every bit of
high ground in otherwise beautiful Spain is covered with the goddam
things. If we relied on these for electricity, we would have to turn
everything off on still days, or fire up the remaining fossil fuelled
power stations.

Derek Copeland

Read the book; it *is* worth it.

On Jan 11, 6:04Â*am, delboy wrote:
On 10 Jan, 20:47, Tom Gardner wrote:



On Jan 10, 8:24Â*pm, Gary Evans wrote:

Quote from the book of Gore, chapter 7, verse 3.

Numbers can be our friend if we use them correctly.

As MacKay says ...

In a climate where people don’t understand the numbers, newspapers,
campaigners, companies, and politicians can get away with murder.

We need simple numbers, and we need the numbers to be comprehen-
sible, comparable, and memorable.

With numbers in place, we will be better placed to answer questions
such as these:
1) Can a country like Britain conceivably live on its own renewable
en-
ergy sources?
2) If everyone turns their thermostats one degree closer to the
outside
temperature, drives a smaller car, and switches off phone chargers
when not in use, will an energy crisis be averted?
3) Should the tax on transportation fuels be signi?cantly increased?
4) Should speed-limits on roads be halved?
5) Is someone who advocates windmills over nuclear power stations
“an enemy of the people�?
6) If climate change is “a greater threat than terrorism,� should
govern-
ments criminalize “the glori?cation of travel� and pass laws against
“advocating acts of consumption�?
7) Will a switch to “advanced technologies� allow us to eliminate car-
bon dioxide pollution without changing our lifestyle?
8) Should people be encouraged to eat more vegetarian food?
9) Is the population of the earth six times too big?

Hopefully yes to question 1 and possibly question 7, and no to the
rest.

"Hopefully" is intellectually lazy; we need numbers and
consequences (e.g. yes, X can happen provided that Y is
halved, or whatever)

MacKay gives such numbers and consequences, and presents
a number of possible futures.

As he says part way through the book

We are drawing to the close of Part I. The assumption was that we
want
to get off fossil fuels, for one or more of the reasons listed in
Chapter 1 –
climate change, security of supply, and so forth. Figure 18.9 shows
how
much power we currently get from renewables and nuclear. They amount
to just 4% of our total power consumption.
The two conclusions we can draw from Part I a
1. To make a difference, renewable facilities have to be country-
sized.
For any renewable facility to make a contribution comparable to
our
current consumption, it has to be country-sized. To get a big
contribu-
tion from wind, we used wind farms with the area of Wales. To
get a
big contribution from solar photovoltaics, we required half the
area
of Wales. To get a big contribution from waves, we imagined wave
farms covering 500 km of coastline. To make energy crops with a
big
contribution, we took 75% of the whole country.
Renewable facilities have to be country-sized because all
renewables
are so diffuse. Table 18.10 summarizes most of the powers-per-
unit-
area that we encountered in Part I.
To sustain Britain’s lifestyle on its renewables alone would be
very
dif�cult. A renewable-based energy solution will necessarily be
large
and intrusive.
2. It’s not going to be easy to make a plan that adds up using
renewables
alone. If we are serious about getting off fossil fuels, Brits
are going
to have to learn to start saying “yes� to something. Indeed to
several
somethings.
In Part II I’ll ask, “assuming that we can’t get production from
renew-
ables to add up to our current consumption, what are the other
options?�