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manthan33 wrote:

Freddy wrote:

evnow wrote:

Freddy wrote:

evnow wrote:

Steve Forbes - someone who considers global warming a "myth" ...

He's right.

Oh yes - Rush & Cheney on one side, thousands of scientists on the other.
I guess you are a creationist & flat earther too.

Don't be rude. I am neither religious nor an idiot. I am, on the other hand, a maths graduate with a low opinion of people who abuse statistics for the purposes of marketing.

What ? You didn't realise how much of the supposed evidence for global warming is based on bogus statistical studies of grossly imperfect data ? You mean you haven't looked into the science behind the biggest ever threat to civilisation, but have been willing to take other people's word for it ? Oh, dear. How very, umm, faith-based ...

name one

Mann Bradley & Hughes 1998 (and 1999) - the original "Hockey Stick" and the first really major salvo in the global warming campaign.
Source of assertions like "the twentieth century was the warmest century in the last thousand years, the 1990s was likely the warmest decade, and 1998 likely the warmest year", which you may recall hearing a lot of back around the beginning of this decade.
Based on a misapplication of Principal Components Analysis - a fairly standard statistical technique, but in this case, grossly abused and misused.
And if you don't have the maths for it, you don't have to take my word for it - go and read the Congressional testimony of Professor Edward Wegman, the chairman of the National Research Council’s Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics. He described MBH as "[their] analysis does not support their conclusions" and that their critics' "arguments were valid and compelling".

Last edited Tue, 11 Aug 2009, 4:59am by Freddy

P.S. to the global warming believers - I'm English.
Stop quoting Rush and Cheney and fox news at me - I've never heard any of them.

manthan33 wrote:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/ec...
97% of people who do global warming research believe in global warming

Bah. When you have such a politically charged issue as this, you have to look at these things carefully. The key part of the piece you link to is this :

Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?

About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.

The first question is a complete null - nobody is disagreeing with that. The alternate picture of climate history - which everyone believed until the global warming campaign got going in the 1990s - is of long slow cycles of warmnig and cooling, with a period of about 5 or 6 centuries. So, going back in time, we have the Little Ice Age, centred about 1750, the Mediaeval Warm Period, the Dark Ages (bloody cold and horrible), the Roman Warm Period, and so on.
Try googling "Green Alps". You can read about some Austrian professor who has been following receding glaciers in the Alps. He keeps finding tree stumps being revealed that have been under the ice since the last time the glaciers receded. Carbon dating shows that there have been at least ten distinct periods of warming and cooling since the last Ice Age (approx 12,00 years ago), with glaciers receding and advancing each time.

So, everyone agrees that things have been getting slightly warmer over the last century or so. The real question is, how relevant is anthropogenic CO2 ? (As opposed to the huge number of other possible factors.)

The second question in that survey,

has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures

is also far too loose. Human activity certainly does affect local temperatures through agriculture and the Urban Heat Island effect. Unfortunately, most of our measuring equipment tends to be near where people are. So there are serious questions about how reliable are our measurements of global temperatures, even now. Even within America, the most advanced nation on the planet, the measurement network is awful - see http://www.surfacestations.org/

The question should be about whether anthropogenic CO2 is affecting global temperatures. Given that it actually asks another virtually null question, I am immediately suspicious that the survey was deliberately set up to support the political agenda, rather than to discover anything useful.

Global warming is already a multi-billion dollar business. If the alarmists get their way, it will be heading for the trillions of dollars. You don't need to be particularly cynical to suspect that that much money will attract some sleaze-bags to try to get their snouts in the trough. So, no trust, no faith - look at the evidence.

Right, anyone else want to call me a flat-earther ?

Last edited Tue, 11 Aug 2009, 5:35am by Freddy

P.S. to "b" - could you make the posting text box a bit bigger ? It's rather contricting ...

MountainManMike wrote:

You dont speed up or slow down a power plant, they operate at only one speed to output 60hz (US). The power output is increased or decreased though.

Quoting from Wikipedia's Base load power plant article:

Power plants are designated base load based on their low cost generation, efficiency and safety at set outputs. Baseload power plants do not change production to match power consumption demands since it is always cheaper to run them rather than running higher cost combined cycle plants or combustion turbines. Baseload generators, such as nuclear and coal, often have very large fixed costs and very low marginal costs. [...] Typically these plants are large and provide a majority of the power used by a grid. Thus, they are more effective when used continuously to cover the power baseload required by the grid.

Now, it's true that not *all* power plants operate this way. But a majority of power plants providing night-time power are these base load power plants. And for those power plants, as I said, they can provide more power to the grid without burning one more gram of coal or natural gas. The coal-fed, natural gas-fed, or nuclear-heated boilers of these plants are kept at a fixed temperature, regardless of how much or little electricity the generators are feeding to the power grid.

This argument is, of course, an oversimplification. But I was following the skewed reasoning given in the article-- the assumption that *all* the energy for one additional EV is going to come from *one* power plant. In reality, of course, it's going to increase the load on the grid, and a proper analysis should use the efficiency of the grid as a whole for analysis.

Frankly, I'm astonished that Forbes would be using the "long tailpipe" argument. That's such a tired and discredited argument by now that I'm surprised dust didn't fly off my screen as I read it. The "long tailpipe" argument goes as follows: "Electric vehicles aren't pollution-free, they just move the pollution from the car's tailpipe to the power plant's smoke stack." This is a fallacy because cars are typically only about 15-20% efficient in their use of fossil fuel energy, whereas in the USA the average power plant achieves about 50% efficiency.

MountainManMike wrote:

Generating power using domestic Natural Gas would decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

How?

The only way I can see that this would make an impact is if we were burning petroleum to generate power. The amount of oil-fired power plants in the USA-- in fact, world-wide-- is negligible; less than 2% of electrical power is generated by oil-fired power plants.

I think you're wrong on this point, MountainMan.

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Hammer wrote:

I'm also a proponent of the Pickens plan. Natural gas fueling of trucks and other fleet vehicles (vans, taxis, etc.) operating within metro areas just makes good sense .... until we can get enough EVs into service, which is going to be quite a few years.

Yup. I'm completely in agreement with that part of the Pickens Plan, too. It would be a fine way to reduce or end our dependence on foreign oil *and* reduce pollution, and hopefully give us enough time to make the transition to EVs without an major disruption to the economy.

The "wind power" part of the Pickens Plan... well, that I'm not so keen on, and I note Pickens canceled his own plans for some big wind generators in Texas. Wind power simply isn't reliable enuff for investment in large scale wind generators, except for a very few places world-wide where the wind really does blow continuously.

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manthan33 wrote:

97% of people who do global warming research believe in global warming

And probably 97% of people who research UFOs believe in flying saucers.

Of course, global warming is much better documented, but the point is that *your* point is... pointless.

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Daniel R Plante wrote:

EEventually wrote:

Forbes magazine .... who just picked ExxonMobil as their Green Company of the Year for their sudden interest in natural gas.

This really cracks me up in more ways that I can say.

Coffee came out my nose.

I've written about this before in other blogs. So here goes. Shoot at me if you wish.

First off to CMA I firmly believe in global warming. (I also think that whether global warming exists doesn't matter. We don't know and that is good enough for me, my kids and the human race. So let's not take the risk because it is probably impossible to stop once we get too far.) I also hate spending my hard earned cash on middle east, Russian and "Chavez's" oil.

Exxon Mobile and going green...
I also have to laugh about this. Why would Exxon be interested in natural gas (NG) instead of oil given the low price of NG and the high prices and demand for oil???

This, IMO, is because they are running out of reserves. The oil companies don't own all of the reserves. They have rights to them. Most oil is owned by the governments in the aformentioned countries and it is, whether we like it or not, THEIR OIL. (So payments for gasoline, in part, go to the governments in these countries and don't stay with the oil companies.) Rights to own NG, which is currently plentiful, are available to companies in the US and Canada. This means that they can own the underlying NG. NG also produces less CO2 which will likely be subject to carbon caps. So NG has a lot of things going in its favor and is often a byproduct of drilling for oil, which still is in great demand as developing nations use more and more and more.

Oil company profits and their duties. Companies (at least in the US) exist for one purpose. They exist to maximize the profits of their shareholders. Company directors have a fiduciary duty to maximize profits. That is the way the (US) system works. There are laws (and lawsuits) that are the basis of this and our governments (fed, state and local) set the ground rules. SO, when we complain about the energy companies pushing oil and having seemingly little interest in electric generation, it is partly because it is their business. They are there to maximize profits. And maximizing profits is what they are doing. It will be difficult to find a substitute given the profit motive.

So, as to Fortune magazine's endorsement of EM as a "green" company, there are some underlying complicities related to above.

RmW wrote:

I also hate spending my hard earned cash on middle east, Russian and "Chavez's" oil.

I quite agree with you there, which is why I really, really hope that EESUs are real.

RmW wrote:

First off to CMA I firmly believe in global warming. (I also think that whether global warming exists doesn't matter. We don't know and that is good enough for me, my kids and the human race. So let's not take the risk because it is probably impossible to stop once we get too far.)

I strongly disagree with you there, and I strongly object to being forced to spend my hard earned cash on this fantasy through higher taxes, and higher prices for anything that requires energy to produce. Which is pretty much anything.

Naturally, I applaud your concern for your kids, but I would suggest that it is far more important that they grow up in a world where science continues to be the human race's best mechanism for discovering the truth about our world, and not just a buzzword that can be used to justify any political campaign with a sufficient marketing budget.

"We don't know and that is good enough for me" - how can you say such a thing ?
I could tell you that your town will be destroyed by giant pink dinosaurs next year, unless you give me all your money today. You can't prove me wrong. So give me all your money.

manthan33 wrote:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/ec...


97% of people who do global warming research believe in global warming

Just to be clear. They are talking about AGW not just global warming. I just read the article. I personally am not sure if I believe either. Its on my very long list of things I need to educate myself on.

key quotes from the article.

" Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?

About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.

The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.

Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement. "

That's actually hilarious. Meteorologists DONT believe the global mean temperature has risen !!

Last edited Tue, 11 Aug 2009, 10:39am by MenaceSan

MenaceSan wrote:

Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement. "

That's actually hilarious. Meteorologists DONT believe the global mean temperature has risen !!

The bit you are quoting is with regard to the second question, whether humans are causing it.
And please see my post #33 above.

Freddy wrote:

Don't be rude. I am neither religious nor an idiot. I am, on the other hand, a maths graduate with a low opinion of people who abuse statistics for the purposes of marketing.

Don't be rude ?!

You are implying thousands of scientists are frauds (with zero credibility, BTW) and you call me rude ?

You know something - if you think you know better - publish. They will give you a nobel prize.

We'd all rather beleive 100s of Nobel Laureats than an anonymous stats "genius".

Do you even realize the consequence of your actions ? Because of people like you - 5 billion people will be dead in 100 years.

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MountainManMike wrote:

Lensman wrote:

Reality check: There is enough unused night-time power available for 80% of the cars in the U.S. to be converted to pure electric drive without building one single additional power plant. And most plants run at a fixed output day and night, because it's so inefficient to slow them down and speed them up.

You dont speed up or slow down a power plant, they operate at only one speed to output 60hz (US). The power output is increased or decreased though.

Lensman wrote:

In other words, so long as the EV is charged during off-peak hours, the EV *will* be an emission-free vehicle. The electric power plant isn't going to burn one single gram more coal or natural gas to generate more power during off-peak hours.

False - If the power is not being consumed then the power plants DO throttle back. They just kind-of idle (pour less coal to the fire), therefore EV charging at night would definitely increase the carbon output over what is burnt at night now.

Lensman wrote:

... I think the issues of dependence on foreign oil and the balance of trade are more important. And converting from coal to natural gas fired power plants isn't going to help those situations in the slightest. But switching from gas-guzzlers to EVs *will* help us end our dependence on foreign oil.

False - Generating power using domestic Natural Gas would decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

I was going to ignore Lensman's witterings as more babblings from the padded cell. I see Mountainmanmike has stepped in and pointed out one or two loony statements though.

What a truly wonderful world the man must live in. 'Electricity produced at night is free' indeed! I expect he has read someone's post. Failed to understand it, and regurgitated it half-digested. Again!

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What thousands of scientists ? And what hundreds of Nobel Laureates ? Name three without using Google.
And what anonymous stats genius ? I never described myself as such.
Personally, I believe the data. But if you want to be faith-based and take someone's word for it, go and make a start with Prof Wegman, as referenced above.

Do you even realize the consequence of your actions ? Because of people like you - 5 billion people will be dead in 100 years.

Sorry, are you joking here ? Where do you get these silly numbers ?

Frankly, I have little respect for scientists who can't even explain what caused the Mediaeval Warm Period, when Vikings were farming in Greenland, insisting that GW is now caused by Man. How do they know it's not the same cause again?

The current warm period is only just the recovery from the Little Ice Age (which was caused by what, Napoleon's Green policies?? Any Nobel prize winning theories?)

Lorenzo wrote:

Frankly, I have little respect for scientists who can't even explain what caused the Mediaeval Warm Period

So instead, they try to airbrush it out of history, in truly Orwellian fashion - see MBH98 and the Hockey Stick, as referenced in post #31 above.

Hammer, please drop me a line wasmaba@gmail.com
Thanks.

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evnow wrote:

You are implying thousands of scientists are frauds (with zero credibility, BTW) and you call me rude ?

I don't think that scientists who have drunk the Kool-Aid of Anthropic Global Warming Alarmism (AGWA) are "frauds", any more than I think those who in the sixties rejected continental drift were frauds, or those who in the eighties insisted there was no difference in how men and women's brains work were frauds. They did go along with the consensus opinion at the time which ignored contrary evidence, but they were not *consciously* aware of the group bias.

The dogma of AGWA is even more deeply entrenched than those previous dogmas, because scientific journals refuse to publish papers showing evidence or theories contrary to the AGWA philosophy. So even many of those who don't really believe the AGWA nonsense are forced to go along with it. "Publish or perish", is the creed in the scientific community. If you can't get published swimming against the tide of AGWA, then you're much more likely to turn and swim *with* the tide.

evnow wrote:

Do you even realize the consequence of your actions ? Because of people like you - 5 billion people will be dead in 100 years.

Do you even realize how absurd your alarmism sounds to those of us who are not Chicken Littles? The Earth has been warmer in the past, and (unless we really do develop the ability to control climate) will be again in the future. It will be colder, too. *Lots* colder if we can't prevent the next ice age from happening. Unlike the piddling little current temperature rise, that *is* something to be concerned about.

Last edited Tue, 11 Aug 2009, 6:53pm by Lensman

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Lensman wrote:

The dogma of AGWA is even more deeply entrenched than those previous dogmas, because scientific journals refuse to publish papers showing evidence or theories contrary to the AGWA philosophy.

That is so much BS. Lensman you are dead wrong on this. Quit spouting crap.

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I don't know if my house is going to burn down, but I've got fire insurance.

Nobody has proven to me that AGW is a problem. But there are enough credible people with evidence that it is a problem that, AFAIK, our society needs to pony up a few dollars to make sure it doesn't become a problem. If we screw up our planet there won't be any mulligan.

It's all about risk management.

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ONeil wrote:

But there are enough credible people with evidence that it is a problem that, AFAIK, our society needs to pony up a few dollars to make sure it doesn't become a problem.

ONeil -- point well taken. Unfortunately, Cap & Trade as now being proposed by the Obama admin and recently pased by the House isn't a few dollars -- it's TENS or HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of DOLLARS. Fortunately, it doesn't look like this caca-mimie bill is going to get through the Senate.

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ONeil wrote:

But there are enough credible people with evidence that it is a problem that, AFAIK,

I'm sorry, there aren't. There are enough to get a load of idle journalists to copy type press releases from Friends of the Earth and call it news, and there are enough to get professional bureaucrats to start whipping up more ways to spend tax-payers' money. But as soon as you start digging into all supposed evidence you rapidly find ... well, nothing. Seriously, I've been following this with mounting disbelief for five years or more, and I have seen absolutely nothing that makes me think "hmm, that's hard to explain any other way".

ONeil wrote:

I don't know if my house is going to burn down, but I've got fire insurance.

This is a really bad analogy (which is why the warmists keep banging the drum about it). If your fire insurance cost half your disposable income, you wouldn't pay it - you'ld move somewhere else.
The cost of all the things the warmists want to do is not some minor, "few dollars a month" type sum - it is serious, economy-changing tax grab on a quite unprecedented scale.

And that's just the money. What will cost far more - and what infuriates me - is the idea that science can be turned into a marketing buzzword that can be used to sell any political agenda. What's next ? The return of eugenics ?

As I promised in the chat this morning, my 2 cents on AGW. Pretty obvious points.

1."Not knowing the threat's size" is something completely different from "knowing that the threat size is negligible". Ignoring the threat is justified only by the second one. And the second one doesn't necessarily follow first one.

2. Natural fluctuations make the situation more, not less dangerous. They can generate a false positive, but a false negative as well. If natural fluctuations change the temperature by 5 degrees down, AGW makes it go 5 degrees up, our measurements will tell us everything is ok - right until we get the +10 when the whole cycle swings back.

Not knowing the mechanism for natural changes in temperature, and therefore not knowing which change is natural (or what the natural change would be) is in no way reassuring when talking about AGW. Using our lack of knowledge in that regard as an argument AGAINST being cautious is unwise, gently speaking.

3.Being scientifically correct doesn't sell. PR is going on on many levels. Attributing observations to AGW to get grants is one (and then you get the funny, mutually exclusive AGW results). Simplification and enlarging the threat "ad usum populi" is another one. The so-called "deniers" can point out thousands of absurd things growing around the AGW theory, but that doesn't say anything about the basic problem. Keeping yourself distracted doesn't boost your credibility.

4. AGW is a common platform, a vehicle for other environment friendly actions. As it happens, reducing the CO2 in the same time helps reducing other pollutants, promotes savings etc. And "carbon footprint" is something Joe Average (and especially Joe Average Journalist) will understand. Even as a lie, it would be a white one.

<socialist mode on>
5. Economical impact. Forcing people to switch to "eco" technologies makes them invest in those technologies instead of perfecting older ones, and that makes the new tech cost effective sooner. Of course it would be better if the eco tech matured first, and then people switch. But in the "forced switch" way we get same end result sooner, and without as much money poured into - ultimately - dead tech. Don't think "negative economical impact". Think "extremely long term investment".

Environment is a common resource. You know what Garret Hardin wrote about those? Individual players can't manage it well. And we can't turn environment private. We can only go the other way, towards common management.<socialist mode off>

I hope I'm writing clearly, I'm in a bit of a hurry and my English is far from perfect even under normal conditions.
Regards

Burning fossil fuels is polluting. Burning obscene amounts of it has a proportional effect on a closed system. Warming? I am not sure, but the biosphere will respond. Maybe more algae, maybe more rain. We will learn trends as time progresses and we may already be screwed or not.
But nature has a few certainties:
1. Oil is a finite resource: start thinking about plan "B"
2. Fossil fuel pollution is incompatible with life. Heavy metals and benzene compounds in addition to particulates are bad for our health. The creation of smog and acid rain is problematic for the environment.
3. Better alternatives exist.

If, for some some strange cultural/political/religious reason, you do not accept the end of the age of oil then you should at least proudly announce you are the cause of what will be quite a problem for upcoming generations.

Personally I think a list of shame would be useful.

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whatEVer, you seem like a decent chap, so I'm going to assume you are presenting these arguments from the position of Devil's Advocate, and that you are not expecting them to be taken seriously. Accordingly, you will not be offended if I am a bit rude about them.

whatEVer wrote:

1."Not knowing the threat's size" is something completely different from "knowing that the threat size is negligible". Ignoring the threat is justified only by the second one. And the second one doesn't necessarily follow first one.

Completely ridiculous. What about the threat of invasion by the giant space jellyfish ? To say nothing of the Martian unicorns and the Venusian seahorses, both of whom are getting annoyed with us bombarding their planets with space probes. You can't prove that these threats are negligible, so let's immediately treble the air force's budget, so they will be ready to shoot down the invaders before they can land on Earth.
I think Carl Sagan referred to this sort of thing as fearing the dragons in the darkness. You cannot assume that we should react to every threat which some crazy person can think up. Or, rather, you're welcome to do so with your money, but keep your hands off my wallet – I don't want to join your cult.

whatEVer wrote:

2. Natural fluctuations make the situation more, not less dangerous. They can generate a false positive, but a false negative as well. If natural fluctuations change the temperature by 5 degrees down, AGW makes it go 5 degrees up, our measurements will tell us everything is ok - right until we get the +10 when the whole cycle swings back.
Not knowing the mechanism for natural changes in temperature, and therefore not knowing which change is natural (or what the natural change would be) is in no way reassuring when talking about AGW. Using our lack of knowledge in that regard as an argument AGAINST being cautious is unwise, gently speaking.

Bullshit, gently speaking. This argument is an attempted justification for the complete failure of observed data to match with the predictions of the global warmists. The global temperature has been cooling since the turn of the century while CO2 continues to rise gently. ( Just as it did from the 1950s to the mid 70s, when the greenies were all trying to sell the idea that industrialisation was bringing on the next ice age.)
What this argument says is, if we have a warm summer, it is because of anthropogenic global warming, but if we have a cool summer, it is because natural variation is masking anthropogenic global warming. Otherwise known as : Heads we win, tails you lose.
This is not science.

whatEVer wrote:

3.Being scientifically correct doesn't sell. PR is going on on many levels. Attributing observations to AGW to get grants is one (and then you get the funny, mutually exclusive AGW results). Simplification and enlarging the threat "ad usum populi" is another one. The so-called "deniers" can point out thousands of absurd things growing around the AGW theory, but that doesn't say anything about the basic problem. Keeping yourself distracted doesn't boost your credibility.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you are arguing here, though I agree there is a massive PR campaign.

whatEVer wrote:

4. AGW is a common platform, a vehicle for other environment friendly actions. As it happens, reducing the CO2 in the same time helps reducing other pollutants, promotes savings etc. And "carbon footprint" is something Joe Average (and especially Joe Average Journalist) will understand. Even as a lie, it would be a white one.

Joe Average was doing perfectly well understanding the threat of acid rain long before the global warming campaign came along.
And the global warming campaign is far more pervasive than any previous greeny campaign. Given the utterly supine behaviour of the press, it is being used to justify an unprecedented level of completely spurious interference with free economies, all of which will make me, you, your children and your grandchildren far poorer than they would otherwise have been. I say this a bad thing, and as lies go, it is as black as they come.

whatEVer wrote:

<socialist mode on>
5. Economical impact. Forcing people to switch to "eco" technologies makes them invest in those technologies instead of perfecting older ones, and that makes the new tech cost effective sooner. Of course it would be better if the eco tech matured first, and then people switch. But in the "forced switch" way we get same end result sooner, and without as much money poured into - ultimately - dead tech. Don't think "negative economical impact". Think "extremely long term investment".
Environment is a common resource. You know what Garret Hardin wrote about those? Individual players can't manage it well. And we can't turn environment private. We can only go the other way, towards common management.<socialist mode off>

Well, at least you have the honesty to admit it is socialism, with the immediate implication that it will fail as badly as all of history's other examples of socialism.
Energy storage is not an engineering problem that can be solved by a massive budget and lots of bright engineers. It is a scientific problem – no-one knows how to store energy more efficiently than with fossil fuels. (With the possible exception, we all hope, of Dick Weir.) This sort of problem does not get solved by government fiat – if it could be, then Jimmy Carter would have solved it back after the 1970s oil shocks.
By all means, put public money into basic scientific research, or X-prizes for successfully building and EESU or its equivalent. But there is no justification for crippling the economy today in the hope that a solution will come along, born of a desperate attempt to avoid government-imposed poverty.
So, yes I bloody well will think "negative economical impact", because that is exactly what it is.
Yes, I am aware of the tragedy of the commons. But, as with any infringement of liberty, government power should be subject to massive limitations, or the bureaucrats will take over.

So, overall, thank you for your Devil's Advocacy, but I am afraid that you are overvaluing it; with respect, these arguments are worth considerably less than two cents.

My best wishes to you, whatEVer.

Oil is not the only fossil fuel we burn. We also burn coal and natural gas. And if you're talking about limited resources, you can add things like uranium too. We are - within decades - going to find all of these in short supply.

How bad these things are for our health is debatable. The human body is well adapted to an environment containing large amounts of smoke.

Fire has been used for quite a long time now, and generations have lived their lives in hut filled with smoke from wood or animal dung. Were it to be as dangerous as claimed, I think we'd already know about it. Probably it's a lot less dangerous than a diet of burgers and pizza.

There are certainly better alternatives, and it seems to me that solar is probably the best of them. The only problem is storage of the energy they collect for use at night, or when a great deal of energy is required for things like aircraft or railroad locomotives.

Huge banks of batteries boggles the imagination (and the bank account I suspect) and I can't see any power company going that way, although I'd be surprised if nobody tried it. Converting from AC to DC and back as well as battery losses make it an inefficient proposition anyway.

The plus side is that plentiful PV power (and it is potentially very plentiful) means that inefficiencies may not prove too important. My bet is that power companies will try numerous approaches, but I suspect that batteries will not be a popular one.

As regards EVs, there are two possibilities. One is that they will become popular in which case we are left with the problem that they are likely to be in use when electricity to recharge them is available, and demand for recharging them is at it's peak when power is at a premium, exacerbating the storage problem.

The other possibility is that they will not become popular, in which case a chemical fuel will be needed for them, and the strategy of using solar power to create a flexible fuel will receive a considerable boost.

There are two ways to do this. One is to use the electrical power as input to an chemical process of some sort, and the other is to use the sunlight in photosynthesis via plants/algae.

We'll have to wait and see. There isn't enough evidence to say that the future is EVs yet, and my suspicion is that it's unlikely to happen soon if at all.

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Here's the latest Uranium supply forecast through 2050, according to IAEA.

http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/P...

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How bad these things are for our health is debatable. The human body is well adapted to an environment containing large amounts of smoke.

Fire has been used for quite a long time now, and generations have lived their lives in hut filled with smoke from wood or animal dung. Were it to be as dangerous as claimed, I think we'd already know about it. Probably it's a lot less dangerous than a diet of burgers and pizza.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Perhaps the life span of 30-40 years for our smoke breathing ancestors was a clue. I have plenty of relatives buried in Manchester who worked in mills. Most of them died from TB and unpleasant air.
Here in the states there is also warnings on packs of cigarettes about smoking and second hand smoke.

I would guess you climbed out of a time capsule from the forties.

There is no health benefit from smoke (other than BBQ imo) and there is evidence that smoke is not good for you.
Take it up with the American lung association.

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Fibb222 wrote:

That is so much BS. Lensman you are dead wrong on this. Quit spouting crap.

Fibb, are you willing to learn something you clearly don't know on this subject? If you don't have a closed mind, then read "Scientists Threatened for Climate Denial".

Anyone who thinks I'm making this stuff up needs to think again. I've got plenty of web articles bookmarked... so bring it on!

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Tec wrote:

How bad these things are for our health is debatable. The human body is well adapted to an environment containing large amounts of smoke.

Now I'm puzzled, Tec. Elsewhere you've claimed that the fumes from making toast are so hazardous to your health that they're more dangerous than diesel fumes. So which is it?

But, seriously... the rising incidence of asthma among children, as well as increasing incidence of respiratory diseases like lung cancer and emphysema, are fairly clear indications that people are *not* well adapted to industrial air pollution.

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