Looks like that California case about regulating CO2 may get a scientific boost

[BaliBabyDoc]

Reuters via Yahoo

NORWICH (Reuters) - Air from the oldest ice core confirms human activity has increased the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to levels not seen for hundreds of thousands of years, scientists said on Monday.
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"Before the last 200 years, which man has been influencing, it was pretty steady," he added.

The natural level of CO2 over most of the past 800,000 years has been 180-300 parts per million by volume (ppmv) of air. But today it is at 380 ppmv.

I will interpret for those that learned science in Kansas, Utah, homeschooled, or Leviticus Christian Faith Academy.

For a very, very, very, very, very long time, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere cycled from as low as 180 up to a high of 300. Up, down, and in-between . . . reflecting the natural climatic variation of the planet. But something strange started happening about 2 centuries ago. The amount of CO2 started going up but when it cycled down it rarely reached previous lows.

"The most scary thing is that carbon dioxide today is not just out of the range of what happened in the last 650,000 years but already up 100 percent out of the range,"

I assume this guy is saying that the EXPECTED pattern is that we would be approaching a cyclic LOW but due to human activity we are at TWICE that level.

The ice core record showed it used to take about 1,000 years for a CO2 increase of 30 ppmv. It has risen by that much in the last 17 years alone.

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Locked due to the poll choices. Sarcasm/funny or not, the last choice is inappropriate.

Anandtech Moderator

 

[BrownTown]

There is no debate that human release alot of CO2 which increases global CO2 levels, the debate is over whether or not this is the casue of the current warming trend.

EDIT: also, the considerable bias in your poll choices doesnt help your argument

 

[charrison]

Get the environuts out of the way and start building nukes and wind farms where is enough, even if it messes up the view for a couple senators. Also realize that kyoto is fatally flawed for leaving china and india out of the deal.

Coal gasification and co2 sequestoring are not bad options either.

 

[BrownTown]

I consider it completely ironic that the people who argue against nuclear and to a lesser extent wind are 'enviromentalists' even though both these technologies produce no CO2. And the people arguing for them are big buisnesses due to the fact that both technologies are economically viable nowadays. Also, it doesnt do us any good to cripple our economy while China goes on using coal plants that are much much dirtier than ours.

 

[CycloWizard]

As BrownTown suggests, whether CO2 is really a worthwhile thing to look at is the debate. My department, which is no longer simply the Department of Chemical Engineering but the Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering Department (bleh) does lots of research on air quality, coal emissions, and human influences on climate. The greatest agreement seems to be that water, not CO2, is the most influential greenhouse gas. Now, I know relatively little about the natural water cycle, but everything I know about thermodynamics and such agrees with this analysis on almost a common sense level. The confounding factor that most people don't realize is that CO2 and H2O are both products of combustion, so any correlation of one will be difficult to isolate from an effect of the other. This means that sequestering CO2 will have little to no effect on global warming.

What does this really mean? As long as we keep producing water during energy production, average temperatures will increase. That is, until cloud cover increases and solar radiation absorption decreases. Then things become more complicated. In any case, the jackassery put forth by the OP indicates he is as uninformed as those he blatantly mocks. Perhaps an honest discussion would actually accomplish something besides padding your ego?

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
I consider it completely ironic that the people who argue against nuclear and to a lesser extent wind are 'enviromentalists' even though both these technologies produce no CO2. And the people arguing for them are big buisnesses due to the fact that both technologies are economically viable nowadays. Also, it doesnt do us any good to cripple our economy while China goes on using coal plants that are much much dirtier than ours.

Curiously, China acknowledged the unsustainable nature of their coal-fired plants years ago and have been actively working on alternatives. To the contrary, the current party in control of the US government is the primary source of OPPOSITION to emissions controls on industry, individuals, or vehicles.

Nuclear power is NOT a solution in the context of:
1) true environmental impact of extraction NOT considered
2) true cost of building the facility NOT considered
3) no reasoned storage plan

Unlike countries like France . . . the USA has not addressed these issues. Overall, energy policy is too important to be just another 'market' for mismanagement in which industry and Congress treat the Treasury like its a piggy bank for the best connected.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard
As BrownTown suggests, whether CO2 is really a worthwhile thing to look at is the debate. My department, which is no longer simply the Department of Chemical Engineering but the Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering Department (bleh) does lots of research on air quality, coal emissions, and human influences on climate. The greatest agreement seems to be that water, not CO2, is the most influential greenhouse gas. Now, I know relatively little about the natural water cycle, but everything I know about thermodynamics and such agrees with this analysis on almost a common sense level. The confounding factor that most people don't realize is that CO2 and H2O are both products of combustion, so any correlation of one will be difficult to isolate from an effect of the other. This means that sequestering CO2 will have little to no effect on global warming.

What does this really mean? As long as we keep producing water during energy production, average temperatures will increase. That is, until cloud cover increases and solar radiation absorption decreases. Then things become more complicated. In any case, the jackassery put forth by the OP indicates he is as uninformed as those he blatantly mocks. Perhaps an honest discussion would actually accomplish something besides padding your ego?

Water certainly is a source of Warming, but the biggest difference is that Water cycles through the atmosphere very fast(within days).

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Oh and cyclotool . . . don't let your ignorance hurt too much.

While water vapor is indeed a far more abundant greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is a more efficient greenhouse gas. Here's a clue, if CO2 was irrelevant . . . we wouldn't have it. It is particularly of note that humidity decreases as you rise in the atmosphere so a disproportionate amount of reradiated infrared energy is blocked by CO2 and other non-water vapor gases.

The primary flaw in most models isn't the absence of water vapor (some researchers do choose to correct for it). The primary liability is poor modeling for clouds.

As a real scientist let me inform you that we like doing experiments to test hypotheses. Climate science is essentially impossible except within the context of computer simulations that are quite limited due to what we don't know. That's a poor excuse to do nothing as current (and societies of the recent past) have embarked on a global 'experiment' of unknown consequences. It's just plain stupid but it's not surprising you are no position to acknowledge the obvious.

Fortunately, acutal authorities do.

 

[BrownTown]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
1) true environmental impact of extraction NOT considered
2) true cost of building the facility NOT considered
3) no reasoned storage plan

1. yes, it is. The amount of Uranium mined and the amount of energy spent on it is considerably less than coal.

2. im not sure what you mean by "true cost" here, but i assure you that utilities know exactly what they are getting into when they build a plant, they know it will cost billions, and they know it will need to be decomishioned in 60 years (exactly like EVERY other power plant).

3. try looking up Yucca mountain, its very well reasoned. Unfortunately there are too many people in this country who refuse to listen to reason for it to be opened.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
Oh and cyclotool . . . don't let your ignorance hurt too much.

While water vapor is indeed a far more abundant greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is a more efficient greenhouse gas. Here's a clue, if CO2 was irrelevant . . . we wouldn't have it. It is particularly of note that humidity decreases as you rise in the atmosphere so a disproportionate amount of reradiated infrared energy is blocked by CO2 and other non-water vapor gases.

The primary flaw in most models isn't the absence of water vapor (some researchers do choose to correct for it). The primary liability is poor modeling for clouds.

As a real scientist let me inform you that we like doing experiments to test hypotheses. Climate science is essentially impossible except within the context of computer simulations that are quite limited due to what we don't know. That's a poor excuse to do nothing as current (and societies of the recent past) have embarked on a global 'experiment' of unknown consequences. It's just plain stupid but it's not surprising you are no position to acknowledge the obvious.

Fortunately, acutal authorities do.

You're right. As an MD, you're obviously infinitely better suited to judge the validity of a climate model because you know all about things like Navier-Stokes equations, radiative heat transfer, and mass transfer. We engineers only pretend to study such things to sound important. In reality, we don't have a clue what we're really doing and rely on the opinion of MDs to tell us what's really going on. Maybe the guy that came and gave our department seminar on this topic last Friday was an MD or maybe he was an engineer. It's hard to tell who to believe now!

edit: And yes, I know well that Fick (the guy who postulated the constitutive relation for linear diffusive mass transfer operations) was a medical doctor was a physician. But he postulated it based on Fourier's constitutive relation for linear conductive heat transfer, leaving the math to someone else.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
I consider it completely ironic that the people who argue against nuclear and to a lesser extent wind are 'enviromentalists' even though both these technologies produce no CO2. And the people arguing for them are big buisnesses due to the fact that both technologies are economically viable nowadays. Also, it doesnt do us any good to cripple our economy while China goes on using coal plants that are much much dirtier than ours.

They have other political ambitions, mainly to knock out the biggest economic super power on the globe. It isnt ironic, it is calculated imo. The best example of this is trying to cripple the US economy while giving china and India a greenlight to continue on burning.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
1) true environmental impact of extraction NOT considered
2) true cost of building the facility NOT considered
3) no reasoned storage plan

1. yes, it is. The amount of Uranium mined and the amount of energy spent on it is considerably less than coal.

2. im not sure what you mean by "true cost" here, but i assure you that utilities know exactly what they are getting into when they build a plant, they know it will cost billions, and they know it will need to be decomishioned in 60 years (exactly like EVERY other power plant).

3. try looking up Yucca mountain, its very well reasoned. Unfortunately there are too many people in this country who refuse to listen to reason for it to be opened.

Nuclear power is currently the best option and the obstacles in the way of its expansion are political in nature, not technical or financial.

The vast majority of the waste sitting at US commercial sites can be reproccessed and burned up in special reactors to produce yet more energy and reducing the amount of waste requireing long term geologic storage to a rather small fraction of the original mass. We also have the technology to produce more fuel without mining using breeder reactors

We in the US have a particular advantage. We have the longest history of nuclear research and commercial generation in the entire world. GE and Westinghouse export their newest (and safest) reactor designs to other countries (Japan, South Korea, etc..) while our utilities start to retire old reactors with no replacements in sight because of the misplaced fears of the public. Fears that are fueled by environuts who trot out pictures of Chernobyl every time someone thinks about building a new (and much safer) plant. Thankfully that tactic is nearing the end of its effectiveness as energy prices rise across the board.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
1) true environmental impact of extraction NOT considered
2) true cost of building the facility NOT considered
3) no reasoned storage plan

1. yes, it is. The amount of Uranium mined and the amount of energy spent on it is considerably less than coal.

2. im not sure what you mean by "true cost" here, but i assure you that utilities know exactly what they are getting into when they build a plant, they know it will cost billions, and they know it will need to be decomishioned in 60 years (exactly like EVERY other power plant).

3. try looking up Yucca mountain, its very well reasoned. Unfortunately there are too many people in this country who refuse to listen to reason for it to be opened.

1) The environmental impact of extraction and processing of uranium is DIFFERENT from the amount of energy expended in the process. That doesn't mean I'm against nuclear power. In fact, I'm a strong proponent. But it should be in the context of an open, honest discussion about who wins and loses. IMO, the overall benefit of expanded nuclear power generation outweighs the "costs". But I would much prefer to live near the powerplant than live where they extract and process the ore.

2) Name a nuclear power plant built in the past 30 years that came in under cost. Utilities 'sell' the idea of a plant to the community or state utility commission under assumptions they rarely (if ever) meet. Afterwards, they pass the costs on to consumers. If a public utility does the deed, I'm all for it.

3) I'm inclined to believe Yucca Mtn is a NIMBY issue but the lack of leadership over the past 20 years gives me little faith in it actually getting done. The larger issue is about developing a nuke cycle closer to European models that dramatically increase the efficiency of the process as well as plan out birth-death for uranium to reduce costs and secure it from misuse. That's what I mean by reasoned. Our current policy of on-site storage until 'whenever' followed by transport/storage to the Vapor Yucca facility is not reasoned its lame.

Nukes shouldn't be sold as a cheap, clean alternative b/c the truth is we have low cost coal (much cheaper) and renewables (typically much cleaner). Nuke energy should be sold 'as is'. In a complete cycle, it's flexible enough to meet a significant amount of energy needs (once we build enough) BUT the expense of long-term management of spent fuel/wastes is formidable. In essence, there may be NO direct cost savings from nukes. But it's much cleaner than coal, can meet our needs (current and future) better than nonfossil options, and would relieve a significant amount of demand for foreign-sourced natural gas.

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

1) Debate is over about anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Human activity is indeed increasing atmospheric (and oceanic CO2).

2) The impact on climate is less certain but the 'what about the water vapor' crowd doesn't provide an answer . . . just noise.

3) Controling CO2 emissions need not cripple any economies. Deliberate action today will mean less draconian requirements in the future. Carteresque energy policies would have helped alot over the past 26 years. In fact, one of the reasons domestic automakers are falling apart is they weren't compelled to produce more efficient vehicles during the 80s and 90s.

4) It seems unfair to retard the growth of China and India given that they were NOT responsible for the current environmental debacle and aren't even close to generating the same degree of current emissions. That will certainly change as both countries continue on their coal-binges so why not have the US (join Europe) lead instead of crying, "they do it too." Why not develop and then sell the technology to them.

5) Current technology could dramatically reduce coal-fired plant emissions. Unfortunately, industry has been writing regs for 6 years.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
2) Name a nuclear power plant built in the past 30 years that came in under cost. Utilities 'sell' the idea of a plant to the community or state utility commission under assumptions they rarely (if ever) meet. Afterwards, they pass the costs on to consumers. If a public utility does the deed, I'm all for it.

Name a commercial plant that started construction in the last 30 years.

Most of the construction delays and cost overruns were a result of public fears in the wake of TMI acting upon the government. There are also now a number of lesse expensive, less complex, and safer reactor designs available to us. The Japanese have already been building/operating them and seem quite satisfied.