Posts Tagged ‘Resources’

Where will energy come from?

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Everyone agrees that one day all the non-renewable resources in the world will be gone or at the very least, very expensive to find.  The only disagreement is how long it will take.  For some resources it will be decades and for others it will be centuries.  This is particularly important  with energy since by definition it’s not renewable.  Once used – it’s gone. So other than emigrating to other planets or depending entirely on solar power, what can we do?

One answer is fusion.  Physicist Steven Cowley is certain that nuclear fusion is the only truly sustainable solution to the fuel crisis. He explains why fusion will work — and details the projects that he and many others have devoted their lives to, working against the clock to create a new source of energy.
(The video is about 9 minutes with Cowley and the balance on a traffic management system in Stockholm that was sponsored by IBM – yes it’s a long commercial.)

Steven Cowley: Fusion is Energy’s future – produced by TED.

Steven says “we have been working on it for 50 years”.  It seems like every 10 years they move the bar further out – he’s now saying we should be successful in 20-30 years.  Let’s hope he’s right.  The last 30 years has been the communication revolution – we now need an energy revolution.

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Preserving the environment is separate to stopping Climate change

Friday, December 4th, 2009

Once again, politicians and many members of the public get confused over the difference between trying to stop climate change and preserving the environment. It is quite possible and desirable to preserve the environment without being concerned about “Climate Change”. Skeptics of the now exposed faulty and uncertain science of climate change generally agree that the environment should be preserved. In fact one of the good side benefits of the fuss about climate change is the increased awareness in the public of the need to not destroy mother earth.

The faulty climate change science wanted us to stop CO2 emissions at any cost whereas preserving the environment means reducing pollution, preserving natural areas (especially forests), conserving resources, reducing packaging and landfills and preserving all animal species (e.g. polar bears). The only one of these that relates to reducing CO2 emission is conserving oil and coal resources. And the problem here is not super urgent; it’s just that resources are limited and won’t last forever – so it’s good to develop alternative sources of energy like tidal power, geothermal power, solar power and wind power. Many of the things proposed in the name of halting “man-made climate change” are actually good – but for the wrong reason.

Measuring CO2 emissions and trying to halt them is a backwards kind of way of measuring consumption of carbon based fuels but in the long run it may be a good idea – in moderation. (By the way – taken to extreme – CO2 is emitted in large quantities by humans and animals – should these be limited?) But let’s not damage the economy in the process. And let’s focus on the real reason to do it so we don’t get sidetracked into carbon capture and carbon trading industries. And if the climate does heat up for natural reasons, let’s focus on mitigation.

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It’s easy to protest – hard to actually reduce emissions

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

On Monday, 200 “environmental” protesters disrupted Canada’s parliament – they wanted parliament to pass  bill C-311 which was submitted by the opposition NDP and calls for a 25% reduction in Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below 1990 levels by 2020.

Jack Layton

Jack Layton

Compared to the population of Canada, 200 is not many.  Although protestors were bussed in, the turnout was small.  But that did not stop  NDP Leader Jack Layton from following up Thursday with a press release, announcing the NDP will use its opposition day Friday in the Commons to urge the speedy passage of the proposed law. It’s easy for him to do that because the NDP knows it never will have to implement this bill as the government and answer for the massive joblessness and economic chaos that would result.

The NDP’s call for a 25% reduction in Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2020 would devastate the Canadian economy. It would cripple not just Alberta’s oil based economy but also Ontario’s auto sector, which taxpayers just spent billions of dollars bailing out — a move Layton supported.

Doing what they now advocate would put us at a huge economic disadvantage with the U.S., our largest trading partner, amounting to economic suicide.  Do they live in a cave?

President Barack Obama is looking at emission reductions of 17% to 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, virtually identical to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s target of 20% below 2006 levels by 2020.

The bottom line is simple. Reducing emissions in a resource-based, big, cold, northern, sparsely-populated country such as Canada is hard.

If it was easy, the former Liberal government of 1993 to 2006 would have done it like they promised to do many times. Instead, when they lost power in 2006, the Liberals were almost 29% above the far less ambitious Kyoto accord target they ratified in 2002.  This was to reduce Canada’s emissions to an average 6% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

Talk is cheap. Doing is hard. Doing what Layton advocates would throw countless Canadians out of work –  but he does not really care, despite what he says.  That’s the real world, as opposed to the fantasy world in Ottawa, where protesters run amok through parliament and the NDP calls for things it knows it never will have to do.

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Green Party and friends wrongly link warming to environmentalism

Monday, October 26th, 2009

There are two distinct and quite separate issues being discussed in the media and being pushed by demonstrators.  Few people are able to separate them.  The issues are:

  1. Keeping the environment safe – preserving non-renewable resources, making the planet more livable and stopping pollution in all forms.
  2. Managing the earth’s climate – first agreeing on whether there is a long term warming or global trend, then agreeing what causes it, then if it’s caused by man, agreeing on what can be done about it.

Only a small part of keeping the environment safe is (or may be) related to the climate – and that is, CO2, methane and other “greenhouse” gas emissions.
Yet if the public says they don’t believe there is a warming problem (and the American Public has said that), then they are accused of not caring about the environment.  That wasn’t the question at all!  I would suspect that 90% of Americans, like Canadians and other citizens of the world, really care tremendously about the environment.  There is no “anti-environment” movement – although some feel the concern about resources is premature, that’s not the same as not caring.  I have met no-one who wants the world to become wall-to-wall city, nor anyone who wants to cut down all the trees; it’s foreign to human nature to want to destroy the environment we live in.

Global warming is not the same thing as the Environment

Global warming is not the same thing as the Environment

Yet I am accused of not caring about the environment by climate warming alarmists when they push their view of the need to cut back dramatically on CO2 emissions.  The connection is weak to non-existent and it is slander (or libel) to say (or write) that anyone who disputes AGW (man caused warming) is against the environment.  Yet this is done all the time – someone ought to sue to make this point.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the deep pockets to pay the lawyers or I would.

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Reducing CO2 is good – but not because of Climate Change.

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

The Cap and Trade bill that the U.S. is trying to get passed focuses on CO2 reduction – the intent is a vain attempt to reduce global warming due to a small greenhouse effect.  Other countries such as Canada will follow suit with similar programs if the U.S. bill passes.  Carbon Dioxide mostly results from burning of one form and another although small amount comes from the breathing of animals (like humans).  Burning comes partly from things like forest fires and burning garbage but a large contribution comes from burning coal, oil and natural gas as a fuel for transportation and electricity generation.

Conservation of Fossil fuels is a good idea although the need is not nearly as urgent as the global warming alarmists would have us believe.  There is only a limited amount of coal, oil etc in the ground so it must eventually run out.  Cap and Trade and similar programs will mostly affect the burning of fossil fuels and anything that reduces our consumption of them is necessarily good.

So in a backwards kind of way, CO2 reduction programs are good although premature – we don’t need it yet.  I would compare the whole thing to the drive several hundred years ago to get a shorter route to China by crossing the Atlantic – a good idea for the wrong reason.

It’s not like the only value of coal, oil or natural gas is as a fuel.  They are the best and cheapest source of hydro-carbons for synthetic materials – commonly called plastics.

Although I am skeptical about the weak science of global warming, some of the actions proposed should be done. It’s a pity the only way politicians can be motivated to reduce consumption of fossil fuels is through scare tactics about Climate change.  Maybe the IPCC scientists knew that?  Maybe they said – “well if we are wrong, it’s good to reduce CO2 anyway”.  Methane is a many times worse greenhouse gas yet there’s little talk about that.  (It comes from cattle and marshes so is quite common.)

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Hybrid Coal Plants and Arctic soot

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

No matter what happens to climate, it is a given that we will have to conserve fossil fuels, one day they will be gone.  One of the results of this is that hybrid cars are a good idea – the electric grid is a more efficient way to use fuel but while batteries are large and expensive, a hybrid approach works to extend range and performance.  The benefit is measured in much better miles per gallon which means oil and gas stocks will last longer.

One of the alternative electricity generating methods that’s proposed is solar power.   But so far, the cost has been prohibitive and there has been no easy solution.  One good idea has been to construct solar reflectors to focus sun on pipes to heat water to generate electricity.  Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this.  One obvious problem is that it does not work at night and another is that the water is not easily heated enough to drive turbines.  Also, the cost is still prohibitive – not only do you need the land, the reflectors and the pipes but you need turbines to generate the electricity.

Solar PowerBut a company in Colorado has come up with a hybrid solution.  They already have a coal plant and by adding solar reflectors they can heat water at least some of the time to supplement the coal heat.  It turns out that this means they can reduce the amount of coal burned for the same amount of electricity – it’s effectively a hybrid coal plant.  Go here for details.  Their coal burning plant will get more KWHrs per ton of coal!  Now if we can export the idea to China and Australia where they burn a lot of coal, maybe the world is on its way to saving fossil fuels.  And if climate alarmist want to tout the carbon saving as a benefit, that’s OK – they’ll find out in due course that they are on the wrong track with that but the environment is still worth saving.

And by the way, why has no-one followed up on this question: Why is it that the arctic is warming (melting ice etc) and the Antarctic is not?  I saw one report that said that the arctic is covered with a very fine layer of black soot from pollution fallout – presumably mostly from burning coal.  This increases the absorption of sun and increases temperatures (do a Google for arctic soot for more).  Maybe reducing the burning of coal would help keep  the arctic from getting warmer and CO2 is a red herring!  I keep coming back to the statement by the IPCC that “there is no other explanation, it must be CO2″ (I’ve paraphrased).  Did they look at soot in the arctic?

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Climate change is a Red Herring

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Politicians have found climate change (a.k.a. global warming) to be a sexy subject.  It’s much easier to talk about doing something to stop climate change than to talk about the environment generally.  Richard Black of the BBC puts it like this:

“Species are going extinct at perhaps 1,000 times the normal rate, as key habitats such as forests, wetlands and coral reefs are plundered for human infrastructure.
Aquifers are being drained and fisheries exploited at unsustainable speed. Soils are becoming saline, air quality is a huge cause of illness and premature death; the human population is bigger than our one Earth can currently sustain.
So why, you might ask, are the world’s political leaders not lamenting this big picture as loudly and as often as the climate component of it?”

These are not the result of warming, they are just the result of human exploitation.

Why is no-one decrying the burning of forests in the Madagascar, Borneo and other underdeveloped locations?  Not only do we lose a CO2 sink (which may not matter) but the environment is damaged, species go extinct and the ecology is unbalanced so new deserts form etc.

Why is no-one concerned that we will run out of energy sources, hydro-carbon sources (for plastics etc), fresh water, lithium and other metals?  Or should I say, there are people worried but it does not include politicians or people making all the noise.

Why is there no world conference on the scale of the Copenhagen Climate conference that is concerned with these more important problems?  One short answer (from politicians) is that it’s a more difficult thing to tackle so let’s ignore it or better still sidetrack everyone with Climate Change.

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