Global Warming & Climate Change Discussion

[magibeg]

View attachment 81653


I think we've gotten there.....

You clearly missed out on Devil Canyon's to ocean heat content fun

 

[FordGT90Concept]

For the sake of fun lets look at Devils Canyon. It appears to be capable of an output of 18,000 GW-h per year.

Not sure where you're pulling that from. It outputs 2.24 GW of electricity, not heat. As of 2015, it takes on average 10,458 BTUs to produce 1 kWh of electricity.

1 BTU = 1,054.500 Joules

19,635,840,000 kWh
205,351,614,720,000 BTUs
216,543,277,722,240,000 Joules or 2.16 x 10^17 Joules
Only about 20-45% of that is converted to electricity.

That's a crapload of heat and only from one...relatively average nuclear reactor.


Have another correlation:

Remember the westerly winds. That swept pattern over the Atlantic could easily be the result of the cirrus clouds being blown there from all of that heavy airline traffic. Pretty much a line there connect to Europe too (Paris/London).

 

[magibeg]

Not sure where you're pulling that from. It outputs 2.24 GW of electricity, not heat. As of 2015, it takes on average 10,458 BTUs to produce 1 kWh of electricity.

1 BTU = 1,054.500 Joules

19,635,840,000 kWh
205,351,614,720,000 BTUs
216,543,277,722,240,000 Joules or 2.16 x 10^17 Joules
Only about 20-45% of that is converted to electricity.

That's a crapload of heat and only from one...relatively average nuclear reactor.


Have another correlation:

Remember the westerly winds. That swept pattern over the Atlantic could easily be the result of the cirrus clouds being blown there from all of that heavy airline traffic. Pretty much a line there connect to Europe too (Paris/London).

I pulled the 18,000 GW-h because they generate that much power over 1 year as listed in their info. Just saying 2.24 GW-h is useless because we're looking at yearly changes and they will have variance. 18,000 GW-h over approx 8760 hours per year works out to an average of 2.054 GW-h.

You are correct that I didn't calculate for wastage however. So if we were at 157,485 before the number would most certainly be quite a bit lower but still in the 10's of thousands. And to be very clear that is to go up a single point on that chart. Furthermore that's assume no energy gets redistributed at all. So basically the oceans sitting in a perfect insulator getting 10's of thousands worth of Devils Canyon plants pumping heat into it for years.

So to reiterate no matter how hard you try to spin it you can't attribute the warming to nuclear reactors or cirrus clouds. They are many orders of magnitude off of what's required and are somewhat known values. It would be akin to lighting a match in a stadium and blaming it on temperature rise. I don't know why you try so hard to come to difficult conclusions than the scientists who actively study those subjects.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It's a combination of all of the above. Not one singular thing.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Google Says It Will Run Entirely on Renewable Energy in 2017

"Unlike carbon-based power, Mr. Kava said, wind supply prices do not fluctuate, enabling Google to plan better. In addition, the more renewable energy it buys, the cheaper those sources get. In some places, like Chile, Google said, renewables have at times become cheaper than fossil fuels."

Good step in the right direction.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Except that wind still has to be supplemented with natural gas for when the wind doesn't blow...or blows too hard.

 

[slozomby]

Except that wind still has to be supplemented with natural gas for when the wind doesn't blow...or blows too hard.

that depends on how much storage is attached and what percentage of capacity is used. its entirely possible to run equipment on solar/wind alone.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Storage costs more than production by more than a 1000 fold. Lithium-ion is about $145/kwh. USA average natural gas is $0.073/kwh. Unless you're talking some other form of storage?

 

[slozomby]

Storage costs more than production by more than a 1000 fold. Lithium-ion is about $145/kwh. USA average natural gas is $0.073/kwh. Unless you're talking some other form of storage?

of course storage costs more than production. but you don't continuously pay for storage. you buy it and the costs get spread over multiple years so spead over 10 years that $145/kwh is $0.00166/operational hour.

but that isn't the point. the point being if you wanted to go to a pure renewable datacenter running solely on wind/solar it can be done without relying on any other fuel source for normal operations.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Lithium-ion only lasts 2-3 years...and then it contributes to the growing e-waste problem. If you look at that middle link, lead-acid batteries are actually more environmentally friendly because recycling is easy and profitable. Natural gas electricity production is copper (generator), iron (turbine), and cow farts (fuel): all plentiful and, except the latter, easily recycled.

And you're just talking storage. That energy to store had to come from somewhere and that has costs too. There's really only two choices: storage (potential energy) and grid (kinetic energy). Could storage replace the grid? Maybe someday but I caution about the above. The grid is mostly environmentally friendly because pretty much all of it is recyclable. Storage...especially the highly portable types...not so much.

Didn't say it was impossible. I think the figures for themselves. "Green" today is so myopic.

 

[slozomby]

Lithium-ion only lasts 2-3 years until it is garbage.

Didn't say it was impossible. I think the figures I just gave speak for themselves.

which is why most datacenters use lead/acid batteries for the gap between grid and generator.

even figuring a lifespan of 2 years for lithium its still less than a penny per operational hour.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

There was a massive edit in case you missed it...

Lead-acid batteries are a completely different animal from lithium-ion. Namely, they like to be fully charged all of the time: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_the_lead_acid_battery

They take 8+ hours to charge from depleted and they discharge fast (usually measured in minutes, not hours). They're very good for filling in gaps in power supply and they're good environmentally but they suck in the portability department and have a service life of three years.

A lithium battery by itself is worthless. It needs to be charged first and likely repeatedly. It sits on top of a power source, it does not replace it. The question is not natural gas versus battery or wind versus battery, it's grid versus battery, stationary versus portable, massive capacity with high efficiency versus low capacity with low efficiency, it's long term investment versus short term investment.


Since we're talking a datacenter, the cheapest, economical, relatively clean solution is wind + natural gas on location with lead-acid battery to fill the gaps as the natural gas turbine spools up and down opposite the wind turbines. Under high wind conditions, the natural gas turbine would be off. In no wind conditions, the natural gas turbine would be operating at high RPMs. That said, natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels but it is still a fossil fuel.

The problem with Google's article occurs in the second sentence:

Next year, it said, all of that energy will come from wind farms and solar panels.

That doesn't work economically without the grid to fill in the gaps and dispose of excessive power. And...well.. there's the asterisk the headline is missing in the next power:

This is not to say that Google computers will consume nothing but wind and solar power. Like almost any company, Google gets power from a power company, which operates an energy grid typically supplied by a number of sources, including hydroelectric dams, natural gas, coal and wind power.

What this article fails to do is point out the problem Google is creating for its utilities: they have to add on-demand power generation capacity to offset the unreliability of wind & solar. I went into that in another thread not that long ago.

 

[slozomby]

yes batteries need to be charged. however there is an assumption that has been made here that might not be true. which is they are buying the wind power and not generating it. when generating an excess of the charging cost is non existent. and when charging is not required they can sell off excess.

there is nothing saying there isn't a grid backing the wind generation. as long as they produce more energy than they consume its a net positive.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It's moving garbage from one dump to another instead of recycling it.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Tidal barrages....short term pain, long term gain.


Thats Wales sorted.......

http://www.reuk.co.uk/wordpress/tidal/severn-barrage-tidal-power/

http://www.tidallagoonpower.com/projects/cardiff/

http://www.tidallagoonpower.com/projects/swansea-bay/

 

[FordGT90Concept]

That does an enormous amount of environmental damage for only 8.6GW of electricity bursts and 2 GW continuous (Severn Barrage).

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

That does an enormous amount of environmental damage for only 8.6GW of electricity bursts and 2 GW continuous (Severn Barrage).

i thought the 8.6 GW figure sounded familiar

India's clean energy progress takes a couple more tangible steps as the country surpasses 8.6 GW of solar PV capacity installed and gives its approval to ratify the Paris Agreement.

Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/det...fies-paris-agreement_100026348/#ixzz4S9FkLn57

 

[FordGT90Concept]

PV is okay as long as it is being installed on roof tops (opposed to buying up land explicitly to populate it with solar collectors). PV has economic problems right now, especially on the recycling side. PV also requires attachment to the grid and the construction of fast response power generation (e.g. natural gas turbines).

FYI, USA has 25 GW of installed photovoltaic capacity.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

The oldest living animals in the world, quahog clams, (yes, its their real name... even though it sounds like an STI ) have revealed 'worrying' data about man-made climate change.

Scientists studied the growth rings on the shells of clams and were able to map out the oceans temperature over the past 1,000 years.

Normally, changes in the Earth's climate and atmosphere are driven by natural changes in the ocean.

But the study claims to reveal that this pattern has flipped since the industrial revolution, when humans started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases.

Professor Ian Hall of Cardiff University,

Spoiler

who co-led the study, told the Independent

The researchers collected 21 live and dead clam shells from the North Iceland Shelf, 263 feet (80 metres) deep into the ocean.

The clams were dated using radiocarbon dating and by counting the rings on their shells.

Chemical components of the shells, known as isotopes, were measured to determine the ocean's temperature from AD 953–2000.

 

[Ahhzz]

The oldest living animals in the world, quahog clams, (yes, its their real name... even though it sounds like an STI ) have revealed 'worrying' data about man-made climate change.

Scientists studied the growth rings on the shells of clams and were able to map out the oceans temperature over the past 1,000 years.

Normally, changes in the Earth's climate and atmosphere are driven by natural changes in the ocean.

But the study claims to reveal that this pattern has flipped since the industrial revolution, when humans started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases.

Professor Ian Hall of Cardiff University,

Spoiler

who co-led the study, told the Independent

The researchers collected 21 live and dead clam shells from the North Iceland Shelf, 263 feet (80 metres) deep into the ocean.

The clams were dated using radiocarbon dating and by counting the rings on their shells.

Chemical components of the shells, known as isotopes, were measured to determine the ocean's temperature from AD 953–2000.

Lies! Lies!!! The Media lies!!! Repeal Obamacare!!!


*edit*
Oh, that's just wrong...
"In 2013, a quahog clam known as Ming, believed to be the world's oldest animal at 507 years old, was killed by scientists trying to tell how old it was."

 

[qubit]

Now some climate change denying moron over at right-wing Breitbart wants to shoot climate scientists for using the peer review process. I give up.

Another day, another dangerous claim from far-right opinion blog Breitbart. Usually, their reporting doesn’t warrant a response article as their unproven allegations are easily and quickly dismissed by fact, but when they begin to threaten scientists with violence, it is obvious that the affable façade of the so-called alt-right is just a front for the unsavoury views of people who want to silence their opponents by any means necessary.

Climate denier James Delingpole wrote an article for Breitbart recently, titled "When You Hear A Scientist Talk About ‘Peer Review’ You Should Reach For Your Browning" – a sentence taken almost word for word from the Nazi play “Schlageter”.

Although the author appears to be familiar with pre-war German plays, he seems to not really get what the peer review process, in terms of scientific research, is all about. So what does peer review mean?

www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/the-meaning-of-peer-review-explained-so-that-even-breitbart-writers-can-understand

 

[R-T-B]

Now some climate change denying moron over at right-wing Breitbart wants to shoot climate scientists for using the peer review process. I give up.



www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/the-meaning-of-peer-review-explained-so-that-even-breitbart-writers-can-understand

And Stephen Bannon from there is now running Trump's campaign and soon to be Counselor to the President. Great world, eh?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Now some climate change denying moron over at right-wing Breitbart wants to shoot climate scientists for using the peer review process. I give up.

Breitbart is just reporting on another article:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/how-many-scientific-papers-just-arent-true/

Article can be summed up by this statement:

The US National Science Foundation recently reminded us that a scientific finding “cannot be regarded as an empirical fact” unless it has been “independently verified.” Peer review does not perform that function.

It cites this report on the IPCC: http://www.interacademycouncil.net/File.aspx?id=27669
The relevant part:

The review process is a fundamental step for ensuring the quality of assessment reports. The Committee found that some existing IPCC review procedures are not always followed and that others are weak. In particular, Review Editors do not fully use their authority to ensure that review comments receive appropriate consideration by Lead Authors and that controversial issues are reflected adequately in the report. Staff support and/or clarification of the roles and responsibilities of Review Editors could help them provide the proper oversight. In addition, the large number of review comments may distract Lead Authors from fully addressing the most important issues. Having Review Editors identify the key issues that must be addressed would ensure that these issues receive due consideration. Allowing Lead Authors to document only their responses to noneditorial comments would reduce their administrative burden.

I think there is quite a lot of merit there.

 

[Ahhzz]

Breitbart is just reporting on another article:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/how-many-scientific-papers-just-arent-true/

Article can be summed up by this statement:


It cites this report on the IPCC: http://www.interacademycouncil.net/File.aspx?id=27669
The relevant part:


I think there is quite a lot of merit there.

So, because you feel "there is quite a lot of merit there", we'll ignore the "Reach for your Browning " part of the statement...

 

[magibeg]

I've posted this before and I'll post it again. Deniers love to poke holes at peer review, but they fail to put into scale just how 1 sided the research really is. He isn't wrong that peer review isn't a perfect system, but you can build confidence levels by taking into account multiple areas of research. The reason why deniers are not skeptics is because they don't use empirical evidence to support their position. Their strongest argument is and will always be the ever shrinking gap of the unknown.