I usually question conventional wisdom and was stuck on the part of co2 being the root cause of recent global warming based on the co2 lag but this helped me clear it up a bit -> http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-interme...
2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
111–120 of 252 posts
Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
#112Nuclear Power, until those who care about the environment accept that the only clean at scale power solution for base load is nuclear power we will get no where. "Renewables" are great and should be in the mix but they are not an at scale solution. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/source... By going mostly electric for our transportation and nuclear for power generation we could really make a den…
This plan seems to ignore the growth curves of renewables.
By the time any nuclear power expansion plan gets into place exponential growth in photovoltaics and other renewable technologies will have taken over.
Nuclear power would have been a great idea, if we had started at least 10 or 20 years ago. It is unfortunate "environmentalists" did such a disservice to the environment, but we're long past the point of Nuclear being a viable solution.
Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
#113Nuclear Power, until those who care about the environment accept that the only clean at scale power solution for base load is nuclear power we will get no where. "Renewables" are great and should be in the mix but they are not an at scale solution. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/source... By going mostly electric for our transportation and nuclear for power generation we could really make a den…
Earth has a set amount of uranium that is destroyed when creating energy. Currently we have about 200 years of uranium available for economical extraction. But if we tried to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear, we would be out within a few decades. Then we'd need to move to other non-renewable materials (thorium?) or start mining astroids. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glob... And the min…
By 200 years we will probably have fusion working anyway. Problem mostly solved.
Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Earth has a set amount of uranium that is destroyed when creating energy. Currently we have about 200 years of uranium available for economical extraction. But if we tried to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear, we would be out within a few decades. Then we'd need to move to other non-renewable materials (thorium?) or start mining astroids. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glob... And the min…
> Currently we have about 200 years of uranium available for economical extraction. I responded to your claim previously[0]: > In that 200 years a whole lot more uranium will become available for economical extraction, exactly the same as what happened with oil and natural gas. Do you have reason to believe this will not happen? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10623187
I'm no expert here. I'm simply parroting what the scientists at the Nuclear Energy Agency have reported.
Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
people ... understand that there's clearly something going wrong with the world something is terribly wrong This feeling of impending catastrophe, especially when prompted by signals as imperceptible to a human being as average change of 1.33 degrees Celsius (on land) on the average of the 20th century temperatures, to me is an indication of that kind of paranoia or panic that feeds on tiny when not completely imagin…
Is it an anecdote, when every ice mass on the planet is melting/has melted? When 400 century old ice in Siberia is all gone in a matter of a few years? When the million-year-old Antarctic ice shelf is undergoing runaway melting because of seawater rushing in underneath because the margins have melted away? The planet is undergoing irreversible change as we speak. The only 'imaginary' thinking is the denial that conti…
No, it's not, as long as you measure it and give precise figures. And we do it. I just tend not to trust somebody's personal assessment of the situation based on the fact that he thinks it's warmer than in the past: it might be local weather patterns, El Nino, simple suggestion.
Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
#116Nuclear Power, until those who care about the environment accept that the only clean at scale power solution for base load is nuclear power we will get no where. "Renewables" are great and should be in the mix but they are not an at scale solution. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/source... By going mostly electric for our transportation and nuclear for power generation we could really make a den…
Earth has a set amount of uranium that is destroyed when creating energy. Currently we have about 200 years of uranium available for economical extraction. But if we tried to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear, we would be out within a few decades. Then we'd need to move to other non-renewable materials (thorium?) or start mining astroids. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glob... And the min…
I think in your link "economical extraction" means "economical extraction at current or similar prices". At suitably high prices, even extraction from seawater becomes reasonable (google gave me http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514751/novel-material-s... with an estimate of $1e3–2e3/kg). I assume this would have a limited effect on electricity prices because uranium prices are probably a minor component of nuclear power costs.
Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
people ... understand that there's clearly something going wrong with the world something is terribly wrong This feeling of impending catastrophe, especially when prompted by signals as imperceptible to a human being as average change of 1.33 degrees Celsius (on land) on the average of the 20th century temperatures, to me is an indication of that kind of paranoia or panic that feeds on tiny when not completely imagin…
Is it an anecdote, when every ice mass on the planet is melting/has melted? When 400 century old ice in Siberia is all gone in a matter of a few years? When the million-year-old Antarctic ice shelf is undergoing runaway melting because of seawater rushing in underneath because the margins have melted away? The planet is undergoing irreversible change as we speak. The only 'imaginary' thinking is the denial that conti…
All non-trivial change is irreversible.
Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think people have systematically moved the locations of thermometers to warmer places? There's a thing called averages, medians, and other statistics that can remove or put error bars on that kind of uncertainty.
Please don't conflate some sort of political viewpoint to my my strictly scientific criticisms. I didn't say anything except that the idea of comparing data today to many decades ago seems ridiculous when there are so many factors involved with what the temperature is, including location, sun, wind, etc. I'm more interested in accuracy rather than politics or news-grabbing headlines. Regardless, your point doesn't ha…
It's not a political criticism. For there to be a steady, statistical rise in temperature over time due to how people measure temperatures, you have to come up with some mechanism for how that could possibly happen. It would have to be a deliberate effort to game temperature readings so they look warmer slowly over the course of decades. Someone would have to come up with a rate of change such that thermometers don't all go from a shady place to direct sunlight in one year, so it looks all gradual.
Your argument holds no water. We're not talking about one person with a thermometer they've been moving to increasingly warmer parts of the house for a hundred years. If you don't trust the data sets we have, then you might as well throw almost all science away because most of it is built on shakier data sets than this.
Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we went fully "renewable" how much industrial waste would these batteries that everyone needs create? Solar and Wind really doesnt work for everyone, where it is cost effective, available and reliable it makes sense to mix them in, but you cant tell me you fully expect every country to go 100% Solar and Wind?
Global population is concentrated near the equator and near the coast, both great conditions for solar and wind.
Paris is a good example of that.
Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Geothermal energy was stored back during the formation of the planet "Nuclear Fission Confirmed as Source of More than Half of Earth's Heat" http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/nuclear-fis...
That's talking about radioactive decay, not fission. The article doesn't do a great job distinguishing between the two, but it's _not_ talking about the process of splitting atoms. >The new measurements suggest radioactive decay provides more than half of Earth's total heat, estimated at roughly 44 terawatts based on temperatures found at the bottom of deep boreholes into the planet's crust.
AFAIK nuclear fission also includes radioactive decay, which does split atoms, or at least part of atoms.