I don't know that I agree with this one.

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mu38&Bg#

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[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0sCCJFkEbE[/ame]
 
Pretty funny !!

Got to remember though, that electricity has to come from somewhere, mostly like burning fossil fuels, so there's always a cost.
 
Placard at the Leigh Creek Coal Mine in South Australia

"Ban mining and let the bastards freeze to death in the dark."

Australia's electricity is generated mostly by fossil fuels with a small amount of hydro wind and solar, (including my 1.5 kW ;D).

Our goverment refuses to consider nuclear even though it's the only alternative viable base load technology currently available and starting from now would take at least 10 years to implement, assuming unlimited funding and no anti nuclear protests.

Of course we are happy to sell our uranium and coal and iron ore but to use it ourselves, that's really asking too much.

So plate your roof with solar and don't plant trees for shade,
You'll get a big fat rebate,
In fact you've got it made.

I wonder who will pay me?
When all the coal is gone,
No mining tax,
No trees to axe,
But CO2 lives on.



 
It's quite ironic that the current volcanic outburst in Chile makes all electric cars(and other so-called planet saving measures) completely useless.The gases generated by these type of natural phenomena far outweigh any damage to the ozone layer done by man.
But of course,that's an unpopular view.It takes away politicians ability to manipulate people to their own benefit.
 
The problem with Hydrogen and electrically powered cars is the power still has to come from somewhere - the usual supects - coal, oil, gas still accounting for 90% - so where the heck is the CO2 saving.

Driving an electrically powered car does allow you to turn your eco piousness halo up to high beam (like half of the idiots in Hollywood - clueless as to the physics).

We need "Smug" reduction laws for these people.

This is the Oregon petition :-

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth".

This was signed by over 14000 scientists at the time of Kyoto - it now stands at 31478 - of which some 9029 are PhD's and 3803 PhD's in climatology, atmospheric or earth sciences. The Oregon petition is not the only one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberg_Appeal

Over 100 scientists including Nobel Laureates as well as current & former IPCC scientists wrote an open letter to President Obama pointing out that his stance on global warming was simply not true.

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3133

The main petitions are: The Oregon Petition (31,000 accredited scientists), The Heidelberg Appeal (4000 signatures including 62 Nobel prizewinners), The Manhattan Declaration (600 research climatologists), The Petition to the United Nations (100 geoscientists), Petition to the Canadian Prime Minister (60 climate experts), The Leipzig Declaration (100 geoscientists), The Statement from Atmospheric Scientists (50), Petition to the German Chancellor (200 German scientists), Statement from the American Physical Society (150 physical scientists), Petition to President Obama (100 leading climate researchers), UN Climate Scientists speak out on Global Warming (700, many previously involved with the IPCC). All are critical of the notion of man-made global warming, and all of them (with signatures and accreditations) are accessible via Google.

If you want to save the earth - first take a science course.

There is no proof of man made global warming - none whatsover - based on the laws of physics.

The "overwhelming evidence" is without exception based on computer modeling which in turn is based on faulty correllations.

Example: the correlation between temperature and CO2 has the "inconvenient truth" of an 800 year time lag between temperatures and CO2 increaces - so if you use this otherwise significant correlation in your model you clearly believe in time travel in that you must believe if you add CO2 to the atmosphere today you will make it hotter yesterday.

Pull the other leg its got bells on.

Sorry about the rant.

Ken




 
I think they could have done a better job with the fake exhaust smoke locations on some of those. The IC powered cellphone is cool, but I think it needs a better muffler.

Marketing that play on simple minds and those that are unfamiliar with the topic really is an awful thing. Unfortunately, so few know anything about the topic that most think they just learned somethign by watching a commercial.
 
Hmm... Seems as though the planet warmed after each ice age. Damn, those caveman and their CO2 emissions!
 
IceAgeEnding.jpg
 
"FOLLOW THE MONEY" People are getting rich spouting this crap (Al Gore).
 
They got it all wrong. Nissan should be making those incredibly awesome gas engine powered devices, they might make more money, and thats what it is all about anyway.

Lets face it, these companies could give a damn about the environment, and if making "Green" cars is profitable, than they will do it. The electric car is just about as old as the gas powered car, and can anyone say "Stanly Steamer" These ideas are not new, but until recently, it was not economically viable. There is a real benefit to an electric car, and that it costs less per mile in electricity, but that may all change if everyone wants an electric car. The infrastructure currently in place cannot handle everyone on the block plugging in there car to a 220v or 440v service, and that 'cheap' electricity will no longer be.

When it comes to Nuclear Power, these Eco-Terrorists automatically think Nuclear Bomb, when they should be praising it's positive environmental impact. A Nuclear power plant is far from a bomb, and if there were less restrictions on where they can be built, the advancements in safety would be much further along, after all, practice makes perfect. And if one day we master Cold Fusion, the world energy supply could be near endless. But until then, Nuclear is the "Greenest" option we have.

Now I need to do some senseless driving to cancel out the Greenies efforts. :big:

Kel
 
To play devil's advocate:

Sure the power has to come from somewhere but having centralized power generation and grid distribution is much much more efficient and can easily be changed to more efficient systems as they are developed. The video is a good comparison, if you have to generate power with an ICE at each point of load then you have major inefficiencies in each micro system. In general it's better to have one power supplying system that can be upgraded so that the efficiency trickles down.

Also we know that there is not a one size fits all solution, if there were then we would all be building the same model engines because one would be way better (obviously subjective) than all the others. Because this is not true we can scale that observation to larger engine and power systems. We need wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, nuclear, and fossil. We can't make enough power with any single system and every homogeneous organic system in history has died because of it's specialization.

Hybrid cars don't effect the environment in a positive much (if they do at all, many engineers debate that). But they are a good test bed for new technology that could trickle down into the real offenders like transport ships. The difficulty currently is that fossil fuels are still cheaper than anything else, and while most of these engines are used for work the cost will be the bottom line.

Anyone who says anything from a position of "fact" or certain inarguable truth you can bet is lying to you (even me, right now) because as engineers and scientists we know for sure only one thing. And that is that we don't KNOW anything. We have a lot of theories, a lot of great evidence to support some of the more accepted theories, but there is no uncontaminated FACT.


Mind you I love nuclear but there is one huge angry monkey in that room. Where do we store the byproduct? Because in the US right now we don't have a place. All of the byproduct that is highly deadly for a very long time is stored in TEMPORARY containment tanks on the site of the reactors because no one is willing to move the stuff and no one is willing to take it. So we do have to figure out where to put that angry monkey.
 
All of this is logically true: ....fuel shortage, too much CO2 from fossil fuels, we're burning our food for fuel and dictating what is 'healthy' and 'green' for all - 'the common good'. And it is all serious, and also very alarming but the simple fact of the matter is that the planet cannot sustain the number of people (horrific plague) that are now alive and sucking on everything. This will be the largest 'correction' on the planet in history (as if we know all human history) and it will not be very far in the future. The way the greed in our government is panning out, the fate of the US has already been determined, our money is spent and we have no means to support ourselves any longer with energy, food or any sort of manufacturing or self sufficiency. Oh, but we give billions in gifts to the Chinese for humanitarian reasons? Will they jump right in and help us out....?

Takes me 10 minutes to get home from work but if an auto accident occurs on a surrounding interstate highway the gridlock turns 10 minutes into two hours. There are too many automobiles on the friggin highways. There are no obvious answers but nature will take her course.... soon.

Gloom and doom? No; the truth, and I'm smiling while typing this because I know that there is nothing that can be done about it and being sad will not fix it. I like chocolate ice cream on hot apple pie with lots of whipped cream - unhealthy? Hell no, and I'll share. Don't repent and duck; smile and stand up. We didn't do this to the planet....
 
I just wish I could see the degree of realism and rational comment like those of the members of HMEM on other sites. This cheers me no end.

Like Milotrain I like nuclear but the gorrilla in the room is the 650000 spent fuel rods in the US alone - kept in little better than swimming pools - that are leathally raioactive even after 10 years "cooling off" - fatal dose in 15 minutes exposure at 1m radius from a single spent fuel rod.

The anti-nuclear lobby is correct in that this is going to be problematic for thousands of generations to come.

However - instead of looking for "Geologically Safe" containment we should insted be dumping this stuff (after vitrification) in an active subduction zone like the Marianas trench - it will pose no danger of leakage or recovery by terrorists - where it will be promptly covered in sediment and slowly be dragged back into the Earth's mantle.

Otherwise nuclear is still the safest form of energy producion on a "Deaths per Terrawatt Hour" basis. (considering all deaths including mining, extraction, processing, maintenance etc) only Hydro is safer - and that only if you exclude the 175000 Chinese killed in the Banqiao dam burst.

Admittedly Wind & Solar are close and influenced by even a single death due to lower base and shorter history.

Regards,
Ken
 
Spend a little time with google and you can find out that there are Nuclear reactor types that can USE the spent fuel rods currently being stored as WASTE!

The reactor technology is available to render such spent fuel into low level, short term(100-300 year) toxic waste, that does not need special storage facilities. Other reactor types(thorium etc.) can also be used and they are even more friendly, in regards to the waste products.

Sadly, our media moguls seem only to happy to fan the flames of panic by promoting this nuclear fear in the world. They use misleading and inflammatory language that does not convey the true danger levels presented by situation such as the recent japanese plant meltdowns. Bananas are radioactive, and so are Brazil nuts. Workers in coal mines are exposed to levels of radiation that would cause a nuclear plant to be evacuated. Ever been in a county court house with pink granite walls? Guess what? You were being irradiated with large amounts of hard radiation, and if you wore one of those dosimeters that nuclear workers are required to wear, you would have been sent home to prevent the exposure. ???

Eating fourteen bananas will give you a bigger dose of radiation than most people were exposed too in Japan recently...it really is obscene the way things are twisted and mis-represented by our media outlets.
 
Right on Kermit - as a registered radiation woorker - I'll get a bigger dose from a day spent at the local seaside granite rocks than are permissible for a year's exposure at the reactor.

The flames of fear are fanned out of all proportion to the real risks.

Having said that I would not like to be downwind of Fukashima at the moment.

Ken
 
When there is talk about more offshore drilling - Boom, a platform goes up in smoke and crude oil is smeared all over the place. When there is talk about nuclear power as the alternative to fossil fuels - ******, a tsunami devastates a progressively nuclear powered industrial country and the cooling systems in a couple of their reactors fail overheating and destroying radioactive containment vessels allowing leakage of radioactivity.... Ironic?

Then the media goes wild...."do away with oil wells, they're unsafe!"; "Nuclear power will kill us all!" - "hey Rachael, your ratings are slipping - do something and stop talking out of the side of your face." It's all about ratings and selling Viagra and vacation trips. Any sensible thought or rational idea is too mundane for the media anymore and this problem has bled over onto the public who are led around like gerbils with no basic common sense to make a decision. Biggest problem is, no-one cares and if you do, you're an extremist troublemaker.

Nuclear power is the best alternative energy at this point in time. Split the atom to make heat to make steam to make an engine go chug, chug, chug to turn a generator to make electricity to flow through wires where almost half of it is lost - but it allows all who wish to be in the grid buying Viagra and taking vacations.

Iran is installing missile silos in Brazil....Does the media report on that? Why was 'the President' in Brazil last month - on vacation?
 
ranton.gif


Don't forget,

It's all the fault of volcanoes. If they hadn't burst through the ice mantle which covered the earth some 750 x 106 years ago we would not have had global warming on a scale which makes our current so called warm spell disappear under the radar. This in turn allowed some ice to melt and thus water to absorb the suns heat, (rather than ice to reflect it) and then those pesky single cell bacteria eventually became pesky politicians and some even had the misfortune to become media moguls and spin doctors.

rantoff.gif
 
And,

The moon is a major factor too. The gravitational pull on the earth causing a constant rippling pull on everything and don't take too lightly the 28 day cycle - there have been wars fought due to the 28 day cycle... And the effect of the full moon? Why it's a wonder we even exist!
 
Maryak said:
ranton.gif

then those pesky single cell bacteria eventually became pesky politicians and some even had the misfortune to become media moguls and spin doctors.

rantoff.gif
:big: :big:

One of them even ran for president, won an Oscar and a Nobel prize for a largely fictional scare story and now sells carbon credits to those he frightened, the clueless & the gullible.
 
Ken I said:
:big: :big:

One of them even ran for president, won an Oscar and a Nobel prize for a largely fictional scare story and now sells carbon credits to those he frightened, the clueless & the gullible.

The clueless and the gullible - you mean the ones for 'hope and change'?
 
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