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New ice age? Don't count on it

newscientist.com

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Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#51

Post by varjag »

ars wrote: post #37
varjag wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fusion. The ultimate, clean energy generation potential. Also, don't discount wind that fast. The typical "it will have to whole country with these 1-2 MW turbines" line of argument is old. Modern offshore turbine designs are 6MW, getting to 10MW by 2012 and 20MW designs are in the works now. Advances in the field have been massive just in under a decade, with higher output efficiency (gearless designs) and less over…

The trouble with wind is the variability. And even if you assume that there is always good wind somewhere, the energy grid just can't handle shifting power back and forth so quickly. It takes time for the other generators to change output levels, so during high speed wind turbines tend to get disconnect from the grid because of the harmful effects they have on it. The net result is that they don't produce out as much…

> It takes time for the other generators to change output levels, so during high speed wind turbines tend to get disconnect from the grid because of the harmful effects they have on it.

Traditionally, a wind turbine generator works only in narrow range of speeds (say, 2000 rpm). In older designs the variable speed of wind was addressed by using a (massive) gearbox, not unlike what you have in your car. The newer designs (e.g. what Siemens Windpower is churning out now) are gearless, don't suffer from that problem, and have in ballpark of 40% better energy efficiency.

The cap/penetration effects of wind power on the grid are being studied, but on levels below 1/5th of total consumption it is believed to not cause any substantial problems. Most of the existing grids can accommodate that. I think no country approached the 20% wind power penetration yet.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#52

Post by Tichy »

nagrom wrote: post #43
Tichy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the aim of politics is to make people's live more miserable. Energy is being made more expensive to account for the externalities . The markets can then figure out how to make us live well with the proper energy costs. What kind of tech promotion do you imagine, other than more efficient energy production and consumption?

I do genuinely believe that a lot of the reporting and comment on climate-related issues is a form of frenzy by the people involved - not rationally thought-out but a tendency on one side to claim that nothing's wrong and everything's fine (for optimists) and on the other to claim that everyone's going to die and terrible things will happen (for pessimists). The debate is too polarised to be useful, or even interesti…

"The debate is too polarised to be useful, or even interesting, any more"

Except that is probably part of the strategy - FUD. If you give up, the people in control are free do act as they please.

How do you propose to give incentives for development of those things you suggest? Don't you think more expensive energy would make people build more efficient things, recycle better, create cleaner energy?

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#54

Post by themal »

muppetman wrote: post #2

With these sorts of articles now I'm never quite sure what to believe. Now before you jump in to mock me, it's just that I don't have time to keep really up-to-date with climate change anymore. Are we really getting warmer? Are we cooling? What's causing it? For each article I read that tells me one thing, a few days later another comes out and tells me the previous one was wrong and here's why. I hope that this arti…

The original article on Hacker News - from The Register - was a bit sensational, that's just their style, a tech tabloid.

To be honest, I don't think sun spots were exclusively to blame for Dickens era of cold weather in Europe. Wasn't there some talk about the Atlantic belt faltering as well? Perhaps the jet stream moved too.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#56

Post by Tichy »

Typhon wrote: post #34
ugh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, how exactly couldn’t it be a political issue?

By focusing public attention on something else. It's not as if we had a shortage of problems. Then, the matter of climate change could be settled in a scientific manner, as opposed to a religious debate involving legions of people who don't know what they're talking about. Obviously, i'm being unrealistic. Once it's become politicized, it's already too late.

Just because there is a lot of chatter doesn't mean that there aren't also scientists working on it at the same time.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#57

Post by randallsquared »

guelo wrote: post #7
muppetman wrote: post #2

With these sorts of articles now I'm never quite sure what to believe. Now before you jump in to mock me, it's just that I don't have time to keep really up-to-date with climate change anymore. Are we really getting warmer? Are we cooling? What's causing it? For each article I read that tells me one thing, a few days later another comes out and tells me the previous one was wrong and here's why. I hope that this arti…

FUD. That's the point of the decades long propaganda campaign by the energy companies. If they can't convince you outright they at least want to create the confusion and doubt.

Except that the Fear part of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt is the staple of the other side.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#58

Post by Typhon »

Tichy wrote: post #56
Typhon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By focusing public attention on something else. It's not as if we had a shortage of problems. Then, the matter of climate change could be settled in a scientific manner, as opposed to a religious debate involving legions of people who don't know what they're talking about. Obviously, i'm being unrealistic. Once it's become politicized, it's already too late.

Just because there is a lot of chatter doesn't mean that there aren't also scientists working on it at the same time.

Yes, but they're usually not the ones making a fuss in the media about it, and they're not the ones who will ultimately make or not make political decisions.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#59

Post by randallsquared »

ars wrote: post #19
pedalpete wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As guelo points out, this is part of the propaganda campaigns,but who's propaganda. I say go with your gut and do what's right. We know that burning gasoline and coal releases carbon and are dirty. We know we should be clean. Strip mining, not clean. Recycling, clean. Wind looks cleaner than a smokestack, go wind. Solar, well, if the panels are made from plastics are they really cleaner than gas? I think so, go solar…

Except your gut is wrong. Recycling is not really clean. For some things maybe but not for everything (it uses far too much water). Solar? Not clean at all. (For photovoltaic which is what most people mean. Solar thermal is good though.) And just because they are made from plastic means nothing. Plastic is cleaner than wood you know (i.e. uses less energy to make and use). There is a fact that no one wants to acknowl…

Except your gut is wrong. Recycling is not really clean. For some things maybe but not for everything (it uses far too much water).

Well, recycling might use too much energy to be clean (depending on how we get the energy), but using too much water doesn't seem a useful complaint, since cleaning and reusing water is just a matter of more energy.

Re: New ice age? Don't count on it

#60

Post by guscost »

muppetman wrote: post #2

With these sorts of articles now I'm never quite sure what to believe. Now before you jump in to mock me, it's just that I don't have time to keep really up-to-date with climate change anymore. Are we really getting warmer? Are we cooling? What's causing it? For each article I read that tells me one thing, a few days later another comes out and tells me the previous one was wrong and here's why. I hope that this arti…

My conclusion has been that the models are not accurate enough to say with any sort of certainty, since the 90's. It's pretty easy to decide when you look at how they're supposed to work from a physical perspective.
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