Global Warming & Climate Change Discussion

[BiggieShady]

I dont understand why people 'hate' fossil fuels, the only reason I can think of is the media.

There is nothing to hate, just can't use fossil fuels without affecting ecosystem and climate

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Different period in history, the industrial revolution started about 150 years after the Great Fire of London.

I was thinking more Chicago but...all the same. There was copious amounts of coal around prior to the oil boom then lots of refinery, well, and derrick mishaps. Can't forget all of the deaths in coal mines too.

 

[W1zzard]

You can make oil from plants

not nearly enough for what we use as fuel. very good point though, should we plant the globe to make oil for our cars or food for the hungry?

edit, quick math:
biofuel plant yield: 1000 g/m²
at 0.77 g/ml = 0.8 liters of fuel per m² of farming
at 23 MJ/liter = 18 MJ per m² = 18 GJ per km²
18 GJ = 2940 bboe (barrels of oil equivalent)
area of the US: 700,000 km²
-> 2 billion barrels per year
US oil consumption = 7 billion barrels per year

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

not nearly enough for what we use as fuel. very good point though, should we plant the globe to make oil for our cars or food for the hungry?

Have you seen the damage these oil palms are causing.?

they are buldozing huge swathes of rain frorest for this shit. Again causing long term damage to communities half a globe away from the consumer.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

not nearly enough for what we use as fuel. very good point though, should we plant the globe to make oil for our cars or food for the hungry?

Same for the coal-oil process, it has quite a high energy requirement, and oil essentially turns into a method to transport the energy, which iw fine, but why use underground coal supplies when there are already copious amounts of carbon availabe to us, which is already partially hydrogenated, and would require less energy to turn into raw hydrocarbons.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Have you seen the damage these oil palms are causing.?

they are buldozing huge swathes of rain frorest for this shit. Again causing long term damage to communities half a globe away from the consumer.

Now that is something everyone can agree on. Other than the oceans, the Tropical Rainforests are the biggest producer of oxygen. We're screwing our entire race as well as weather patterns when you remove them.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Now that is something everyone can agree on. Other than the oceans, the Tropical Rainforests are the biggest producer of oxygen. We're screwing our entire race as well as weather patterns when you remove them.

Western Govts have to reduce their carbon footprint by using renewable resources, they dont careless that in pristine parts of the world unscrupulous politicians rape the forests to line their pockets.

Beautifu;l parts of the world turned into monocultures, literally no insects, birds, small mammals just palms. Oil factories paying poor wages to people who dont have a choice.

Meanwhile our own politicians pat each others backs cos we are using a renewable resource.

I read recently that only 4 % palm oil in a can of fuel reclassifies it.

When diesel engines were invented by Benz they ran on veg oil as can my car now, straight from the shelf into my fuel tank.

 

[W1zzard]

I read recently that only 4 % palm oil in a can of fuel reclassifies it.

Here in Germany, a few years back, we introduced 10% bioethanol fuel, up from 5%, and huge drama started about people thinking/claiming their car engines will break

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It trashes fuel economy though. 18.3 mpg turns into 13.5 mpg on 85% ethanol. CO2 emissions are about equal according to the EPA. Performance on ethanol was reduced.

10% isn't going to effect the vehicle much unless it's really old but I'd argue that the environmental impact due to reduction in fuel economy makes it not even worth doing. Using the #2 product (food) to produce the #1 product (energy) is silly when there's far better ways to meet energy needs.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Here in Germany, a few years back, we introduced 10% bioethanol fuel, up from 5%, and huge drama started about people thinking/claiming their car engines will break

And i bet none of them did.

A good friend of mine goes to local chip shops, buys the old chip oil (you know ..fish and chips) runs it through a couple of filters and bingo ! ....fuel.
I have to admit though it stinks when a car running on chip fat goes past.
You still have to pay duty and taxes to use it though, in fact you have to get a permit off the Govt to make sure you are not robbing them. you have to document mileages and such.
F****g laughable really.

Provided the weather isnt too cold and it doesnt solidify in your tank veg oil, palmoil, sunflower, all work well.

 

[rtwjunkie]

It trashes fuel economy though. 18.3 mpg turns into 13.5 mpg on 85% ethanol. CO2 emissions are about equal according to the EPA. Performance on ethanol was reduced.

10% isn't going to effect the vehicle much unless it's really old but I'd argue that the environmental impact due to reduction in fuel economy makes it not even worth doing. Using the #2 product (food) to produce the #1 product (energy) is silly when there's far better ways to meet energy needs.

I think the Brazilians have it right. Didn't they convert all the country to pure ethanol for cars? And they are sourcing it correctly too, by using sugar cane, which is much more efficient in the distillation process than corn, which the U.S. uses. That shows the problem you bring up, using a food source that needs large tracts of land just to make a little bit of ethanol is folly. The Brazilians, by using sugar cane, produce a large volume of ethanol at a much reduced land space.

 

[twilyth]

I recently had a problem with my snow blower and did some research. It seems that ethanol when mixed with gas can be corrosive since the ethanol sucks in moisture from the air. I don't think that's as much of a problem for fuel injected engines or for parts that are designed to corrosion resistant but apparently for things like lawn mowers and snow blowers that use normal carburetors, it's still a problem

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Wahey.... thats what you call gas. !

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/11/gas-bag-vehicles.html

If you are Scottish, ethanol is for drinking, any other use is considered a waste.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

And i bet none of them did.

A good friend of mine goes to local chip shops, buys the old chip oil (you know ..fish and chips) runs it through a couple of filters and bingo ! ....fuel.
I have to admit though it stinks when a car running on chip fat goes past.
You still have to pay duty and taxes to use it though, in fact you have to get a permit off the Govt to make sure you are not robbing them. you have to document mileages and such.
F****g laughable really.

Provided the weather isnt too cold and it doesnt solidify in your tank veg oil, palmoil, sunflower, all work well.

It can. Ethanol burns hotter and faster which means it can burn off lubricating fluids that gasoline otherwise wouldn't. Putting 100% ethanol in virtually any engine not made for at least 85% will destroy it. 10% would take a long time to do enough damage that it fails though.

I think the Brazilians have it right. Didn't they convert all the country to pure ethanol for cars? And they are sourcing it correctly too, by using sugar cane, which is much more efficient in the distillation process than corn, which the U.S. uses. That shows the problem you bring up, using a food source that needs large tracts of land just to make a little bit of ethanol is folly. The Brazilians, by using sugar cane, produce a large volume of ethanol at a much reduced land space.

They're destroying rain forest to get only a few years of crops out of the land before the soil is depleted then...here comes the oil-based fertilizers. The reason why corn is used in the States is because there is a surplus of it. We have to stockpile it anyway to feed humans and livestock so there is plenty around. Farmers, at first, supported the idea of ethanol because it eliminates the surplus driving prices for corn up. But that surplus is now gone and, coupled with the drought out west, meant ranchers had to sell off massive numbers of cattle because they couldn't afford the now-expensive corn-based feed to supplement their diet. It's also driving up the price of a lot of grocery store items from cereals to milk and eggs. We may not directly consume a lot of corn but we certainly do indirectly.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I recently had a problem with my snow blower and did some research. It seems that ethanol when mixed with gas can be corrosive since the ethanol sucks in moisture from the air. I don't think that's as much of a problem for fuel injected engines or for parts that are designed to corrosion resistant but apparently for things like lawn mowers and snow blowers that use normal carburetors, it's still a problem

stick one of these in the fuel line.

in line diesel filter about 2 quid. Dont be concerned that it is for diesel engines it traps shit and water.

Storage is where it picks up the h20. So try and keep fuel tanks full and throw any old stuff away if youve had it more than 6 months ish. It is ofte why a lawnmower wot start from season to season, old fuel.


Vodka is basically diluted flavoured ethanol

 

[rtwjunkie]

Yeah Ford, you've got a good point there. We're screwed whichever way we go with cars. Unless we can cheaply design hydrogen-fueled cars which produce only water.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

What about hydrogen fuel? More efficient process and easier to source the reactants.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Yeah Ford, you've got a good point there. We're screwed whichever way we go with cars. Unless we can cheaply design hydrogen-fueled cars which produce only water.

It's not the fuel cell that's the problem, it's the fuel. Producing significant quantities of hydrogen is not cheap. Not to mention, unless that hydrogen is, itself, produced from water, it'll create problems of its own down the road. I don't know how many gallons of water a city like LA would produce but it would not be insignificant.


Fun fact: USA produced more than double the amount of ethanol Brazil did in 2011. There's a bunch of other aspects compared here (2010 figures where Brazil produced more):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_by_country#Comparison_of_Brazil_and_the_U.S.

The only reason why USA doesn't change to sugarcane to meet federal demands for ethanol is because no one has the equipment to do sugarcane and they're not about to go buy it.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

What about hydrogen fuel? More efficient process and easier to source the reactants.

storage is the problem. you need to use it as you are making it. It is easy to make and very explosive.

I have made and ignited hydrogen ( or Browns Gas) in my back yard. Believe me it is frightening.

I used a car battery charger, 2 stainless steel plates and a tub of water. Simple and very effciient but not safe. i was making a system to introduce hydogen into the diesel line in my ancient Hilux

You wouldnt want hydrogen in any quantity near you.

I cant belive it

version 2 at the back of my shed

Adding hydrogen can make the dieseel 30 % more efficient

 

[BiggieShady]

Producing significant quantities of hydrogen is not cheap. Not to mention, unless that hydrogen is, itself, produced from water, it'll create problems of its own down the road. I don't know how many gallons of water a city like LA would produce but it would not be insignificant.

I think it's not the quantity of water that's issue, there is plenty of hydrogen in water (two thirds of every molecule), it's the energy of the chemical bonds between oxygen and hydrogen in water molecule. You have to spend lots of energy to break it by electrolysis and get the hydrogen in gas form that needs to be liquefied for storage by spending even more energy to cool it to low temp. Most of the energy spent for all that processing and storage would come from fossil fuels anyway.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

storage is the problem. you need to use it as you are making it. It is easy to make and very explosive.

I have made and ignited hydrogen ( or Browns Gas) in my back yard. Believe me it is frightening.

I used a car battery charger, 2 stainless steel plates and a tub of water. Simple and very effciient but not safe.

Which is why it is expensive. It has to be chilled into liquid hydrogen which is costly.

Edit: BiggieShady beat me to it.

Hydrogen powered cars simply aren't feasible without fusion power to cheaply extract and liquefy it (or rather, make it economically viable).

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Which is why it is expensive. It has to be chilled into liquid hydrogen which is costly.

Edit: BiggieShady beat me to it.

Hydrogen powered cars simply aren't feasible without fusion power to cheaply extract and liquefy it (or rather, make it economically viable).

That hydrogen cell in the pics in my last post runs off the car battery. that electricity produces the hydrogen , it supplements the fuel rather than replacing it.

What about the KERS system?

?.

SAAB used to have a similar system years ago again not a fuel replacement but all these small efficiences add up

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Still burning fossil fuels. The objective is to move electricity generation and transportation completely away from fossil fuels. That would cut emissions by ~90%. The remaining 10% would be far more difficult to reduce and isn't really feasible to eliminate.

 

[SK-1]

Way to have a mature and sensible debate guys............
I;m impressed !!!

I didn't realize there was actually a large amount of climate change deniers until I read this thread. Both the ignorance and the level of political influence on the population is staggering!

Mature and sensible till the warmest people get offended that their religion is being called out and start with the name calling. So typical.

And here's some more proof this 95%-97% consensus lie is just that...a lie. What a propagation of lies!
Global Warming Alarmists Caught Doctoring '97-Percent Consensus' Claims
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesta...caught-doctoring-97-percent-consensus-claims/
Ill be glad to remove this Arrow from your quiver...sir.

Global warming alarmists and their allies in the liberal media have been caught doctoring the results of a widely cited paper asserting there is a 97-percent scientific consensus regarding human-caused global warming. After taking a closer look at the paper, investigative journalists report the authors’ claims of a 97-pecent consensus relied on the authors misclassifying the papers of some of the world’s most prominent global warming skeptics. At the same time, the authors deliberately presented a meaningless survey question so they could twist the responses to fit their own preconceived global warming alarmism.

 

[rruff]

I don't confirm nor deny because I can't prove either way. Atmospheric CO2 & CH4 are rising and that's a provable fact. Everything that comes after that is postulation. We're heading into uncharted territory with only theory to shine a potential path.

I don't think it is all that important to know how much effect our man-made greenhouse gases have. It's a fairly minor blip compared to other forces on long time scales, and we are going to quit burning fossil fuels at some time in the not too distant future. I think it is good to realize first that we are currently in a major ICE AGE. We just happen to be in a warm inter-glacial period within that ice age. Normal earth temperature was ~20F warmer 100 million years ago than it is in our current period.

You know that cold spell 25k years ago where much of the northern hemisphere was covered by an ice sheet several thousand feet thick? That is more the norm than the exception. And we are due for another cold spell.

I mean check out that ice sheet! That is expected to return in the not too distant future (within a couple thousand years) if we do nothing. Granted, these greenhouse gases may have undesirable effects in the shorter term, but honestly no one really knows if it will be a net negative or positive. Many coastal areas will have issues with rising oceans, but large expanses of land in high latitudes will become arable and livable. Total earth rainfall should increase. The problem is that we don't understand what is effecting the climate well enough to predict what effect our actions will have.

At any rate, we *will* want to do something to prevent the next glaciation. Doing stuff to make the earth a little warmer now does not seem to be a big problem in light of that.