<b>Go Green or Bust</b>

atmospheric CO2 and green house gasses have a short residence time, but a profound effect on rising temperatures due to its ability to absorb more solar energy. The current trend are accounted for in a global carbon budget that suggest the annual trend of the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 is a direct cause of of anthropogenic forces. our efforts may help mitigate the impact but that is being counter balanced by future land development, deforestation and population growth.

We could use more alternative energy resources. Why is it still ok to destroy rain forests and operate coal fired power plants?

Unfortunately, rain forests are cut for agricultural needs. It is a double hit, too. Not only does it reduce the ecological benefits of the forest, but resulting soil is only good for one growing season. This requires more burning to clear more land. It is a vicious cycle.

The farmers are poor and this is their only means to live, so it is nearly impossible to stop this mad cycle.

I talked to someone who has some knowledge of coal plants (at least in the US) and he said that scrubbing coal is pretty easy. The technology is there and is being implemented, but perhaps it could be done faster and even more effectively. The downside of CO2 scrubbers is the loss of plant efficiency and periodic maintenance costs.

I suspect that third world coal operations and perhaps even China simply do not care. These are emerging countries in the industrial world and the emphasis is on catching up economically, which puts ecology practices far in the back seat. It will only get worse.

So we support agricultural needs for 40 more years or find a new method before rain forests disappear?

e.g.

http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm

And as for the ideal zero-emission coal fired plant. Burning fossil fuels at an accelerated rate seems like a crude solution... Then we would pump the sequestered carbon back into the ground... correct? How does this impact the lifespan of those existing reservoirs?

e.g.

http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/01/carbon_seq/7c2.pdf

"atmospheric CO2 and green house gasses have a short residence time"

I was personally involved in a fight with the City of Miami and Dade County regarding the discharge of Sulfur Hexafluoride as a testing agent for a large fire suppression system. After months of public speaking and appealing I won.

I do not believe man is the cause of climate change, but SF6 is heinous. SF6 has an atmospheric lifetime of thousands of years and an ability to absorb infra-red radiation at 22,800 times an equivalent amount of CO2. Not what most would consider a short residence time.

Wow!

You need to stand on taller stilts, so that your weird language can become even more stilted.

I honestly didn't expect a response to my request (and I know the amount of time I gave wasn't much for what I'm asking). But I would really love to see a response. I don't care if you're for or against man made global warming (or whatever it's called now).

I love to learn and I would love to see someone smarter than me show me why less conventional energies are better.

I bet 90% of the subscribers to CR4 are engineers, scientist, and/or mathematicians. We love numbers and facts...not vague, distorted representations of facts.

The single chart just makes a very weak argument. Given that the CO2 readings are taken in Hawaii, and the tradewinds move from west to east.........................well, I think this chart may possibly contribute to the readings.

I've emailed someone to get some direction to try to find some kind of research/analysis that might help answer your question. If I get anything substantial and/or worthwhile, I'll post it.

As I was about to leave work I came across this thesis by a graduate of University of Oregon. It doesn't address your question the way you would like and I hope to get better direction. But when I find interesting links I like to post them in hopes it adds to the CR4 community knowledge base.

It certainly isn't a quick read, but I skimmed through the Conclusion section. It is interesting enough to visit in a more detailed manner when I have time.

Lol thanks for the warning. I was hoping for the nice, easy-to-read-at-work one page/1 to 5 equation summary but I guess now I have some weekend reading.

I'm guessing a lot of research went into this for 250 pages but I find it odd that a B.S. student would have to write a report that large and comprehensive. I hope this has what I'm looking for because I've read some of the other comments on my post here and I see the "partial statistics" popping up again.

I guess I just find it hard to hear so many people speak conclusively but find it so hard to find a google search result for this. I mean I have a B.S. in mechanical engineering and I'm working on an M.S. in it. I know the energy equation. Pulling coal from the ground takes x amount of energy. Burning it in a coal plant is y% efficient...tranferring via power loss has z amount of line losses. Using this energy is an electric car, for instance, is xx% efficient, so total energy required to move an electric car 1 mile is ???...as compared to the current combustion engines???

Total amount of energy output of a solar panel is ??? Meaning that x number of solar panels equals 1 coal plant. Which means that if I cover the state of Montana with solar panels then I can power New York City for the solar panels' lifetime.

WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO FIND???

Lol I'm jokingly angry here. If it's conclusive then it should be public...in WHOLE.

You're right. That's why I emailed someone who should have a better handle on this. Some poking around (which I know you've done, too) just wasn't bringing up anything like you're describing. Yet this sort of assessment, is just what an engineering approach would include.

I haven't heard anything. It's probably because I just sent a cold-call email; a name (with picture) of someone at one of the organizations I came across in looking. One can't expect to get much of a response to a request for help on something that doesn't involve their job; especially when it comes out of the blue from a stranger. No harm in asking, though, right? They shouldn't have their email posted on the website if they don't want to risk this sort of thing.

We'll see.

And, I too, was surprised at the amount of research and length of the document for a B.S. Let us know if you think the B.S. has a dual meaning.

I got a response and asked to cut and paste the body of the email here. Haven't heard back on that. I doubt if the person would mind but I like to ask, at least. I could paraphrase the response, but why, when I can give the exact response. I will say one of the search terms suggested was "well to wheel" so, I inadvertently, found something that I guess I would have found had I waited for some response.

The info. for helping to search (directly from the email) is:

"Searching using terms such as 'life cycle assessment,' 'well to wheel,' 'integrated assessment' of energy technologies might yield something as well."

I read the conclusion of that report you linked and I can see why it was a 250 report. It took 10 pages of redundancy to reach a conclusion.

Are you saying all the data and analysis was redundant? Or bloated? From the introduction it seemed as if the presentation was going to be comprehensive. It implied it was a synthesis of reports available at the time. I haven't waded through it yet. I do the same thing, though. I read introductions and conclusions first and then decide if I want to dive into the body. After all, the body is usually the "proof" (or at least the argument) for the conclusion.

Do you think it included much information pertinent to your original question? -- Since the email response I posted (partial, on Friday) included "well to wheel" as leading to the kind of info. your question seemed to raise in the mind of the person I emailed.

I was being sarcastic with my response more than anything. From what little I read, it looks like it contains some good information but not exactly what this thread addresses.

I didn't read it over the weekend but I will take the time at some point to do that. I guess before I was speaking out of my own frustration though. When some people hear X product is better, they believe it. Some people are convinced with a couple of facts presented in a confident manner. For me, I want all the details so I can make my own opinion. I listen to a lot of political radio, and because I hear both sides argue with limited facts, it tells me that neither side has done an in depth analysis of this.

I wish I was in a better position to help mankind on this issue because I think that's what we need leading this discussion. If we have science and math to back up the man made climate change then we need to do something. From what I've seen, the data we have is inconclusive and incomplete. I, like many others, am guilty of presenting data that supports my theory before I do a complete analysis as well. I would think that if a complete analysis on this has been done then it shouldn't be very hard to find. It's not like global warming has been a small issue over the last few decades.

I agree with your analysis and your final statement.

The real problem is, for anyone to think that there aren't agendas on both sides would be a tad naive. And given that, any real answers will, oddly enough, be lost in the haystack, in that both disinformation and misinformation are readily available for consumption. It's a landscape of crying "wolf" on both sides in a PR battle. How in the world will truth ever be accepted, or even recognized, by the average person? In such an environment, now, the individuals seeking that truth, must go through the process of learning more than they should have to, if honesty was driving the pursuit of truth by all, not just some... talk about a species that is inefficient. No bee questions the "data" in another's dance to get to the pollen, nor any ant question the chemical trail it follows. That's one characteristic that, along with evolved intelligence, should have propagated into higher species, in theory -- "Spockian" I would say.

Belatedly, but for completeness, here is the email response I received from a person at RFF: (permission in this morning's emails; name withheld)

"Hi ____,
I'm not sure I understand totally what you're after, but it sounds like it has to do with finding the energy and mass balances of a variety of renewable and nonrenewable energy technologies. At RFF we're a bunch of economists who are mostly concerned with the economic and policy aspects of energy, so we don't get deeply into the science. However, we do have to have at least some understanding of the science, so we--or at least some of us--do spend some time using the kind of documents you're after. I can suggest a couple of places to look, although perhaps these have occurred to you as well. First, try the national labs. They publish a raft of reports on various technologies, mostly concerned with energy. For example, I know the folks at Batelle have done a lot of work trying to find the life cycle effects of a variety of transportation technologies. They use the "GREET" to get the total use of energy, water, etc. and environmental effects with the entire production/consumption chain. A lot of this work is comparative, so you will see a variety of technologies considered in the same report. You could also try NAS, which frequently publishes reports on such issues. These NAS committees are widely considered to be very authoritative and unbiased, and their reports are highly respected. Searching using terms such as "life cycle assessment," "well to wheel," "integrated assessment" of energy technologies might yield something as well.

Hope this helps."

I apologize for not responding earlier,

Alternate energy sources need to be cheaper to manufacture, operate at a higher efficiency and have a longer life expectancy in order to completely replace our existing infrastructure. The problem is that we use energy at every step in the stage in order to supply the needed resources to the public, also know us upstream costs. The resources that we are consuming are being consumed at a rapid rate. The economical windfall of the supply and demand curve may already be affecting us.

I'm not saying that solar, hydrothermal, wind turbines nuclear or even revolutionary technologies like fission plants are the way to go. I am just observing the impact of our existing efforts on perhaps the world's most accurate measurement of the anthropogenic carbon footprint.

To hold anyone accountable as the PRP "primary responsible party", is dishonest and slightly hypocritical. Its tough to rebuild in today's economy. I mean when there is a blackout in NYC everyone suggests that we revolutionize the power grid. Much easier said than done...

I question the development of future coal powered and other energy resources that consume fossil fuels. I hope for us to decline the size of our carbon foot print over the next decade.

The residence time for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is roughly 200 years. Could we reduce our footprint to the size it was 200 years ago? We are projected to reach 650ppm of atmospheric CO2 over the next century. Projected global temperature rise is approximately 1.5 degrees C, which doesn't sound like a lot, but on geological timescales it is very significant.

Our Friends in Florida and 80% of the industrialized world along the oceanic coastline would be affected by rising ocean levels. Methane hydrates in shallow ocean environments could destabilize and produce an event that would bring a vast amount of living species in our plant to extinction.

Now the probablitiy of an extreme disaster if very small. The correlation on observed rise in temperature due to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is too linear to nelgect. Yes, there are other greenhouse gases that are much more harmful than carbon dioxide, but their quantities are insignificant.

I like to think I pose a challenge to the engineering community. Can you reduce the rate at which we produce atmospheric CO2? I personally don't have the answer.

Chart from here.

Let me restate, next to water vapor, carbon dioxide is the most influential greenhouse gas,it has an atmospheric residence time of roughly 200 years, it's atmospheric concentration is increasing due to anthropogenic forces and this is highly correlated with the rise in global temperature.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htmIts concentration

I've done this before on here, but what the heck?

From your link:

Greenhouse effect from water vapor is filtered out, showing the contributions of other greenhouse gases.

Now, since we know that water vapor is the single largest contributor to the greenhouse effect, please explain how removing it from the equation is nice solid science, that proves that CO2 is to blame.

How's this for a persuasive theory?...................compliments of kramarat.

Every motor vehicle on the road, every power plant, every manufacturing facility, etc, emit lots of water vapor. Therefore, I believe that an anthropogenic increase in water vapor, combined with the heat that is generated by all of the above, could be leading to an increase in global temperature.

Which sounds more feasible?

Furthermore, if we're truly concerned about global temperature increases, water vapor would be the easiest, cheapest, emission to tackle. Why aren't we?

When you look at my graph above that says that water vapor is responsible for up to 72% of greenhouse gas, do you not find this a little.....................odd.

From Wiki:

Unlike fossil fuel power plants, the only substance leaving the cooling towers of nuclear power plants is water vapour and thus does not pollute the air or cause global warming

I've taken the time to delve into this subject, including going over some of the reports that come out of the IPCC.

They boldly proclaim that all other possible causes of global warming have been eliminated from their studies..........................only CO2 is included. They conclude that, (after ignoring everything else), because CO2 is rising, the global temperature is rising.

To call it science is appalling.

The graph I referenced above takes water vapor out of the equation because its atmospheric concentration has little to due with anthropogenic forces and more to due with mean global temperatures.

Increased water vapor in our atmosphere is best correlated with the mean global temperature. That is water vapor doesn't cause climate change, it is a positive feedback, or rather it amplifies the temperature differential.

Due to its short residence time, any unnatural source of water vapor with fall through deposition in a relatively short time span. Its bulk concentration increases as temperature rises due to evaporation rates.

here is a reference:

Yale - "The Water Vapor Feedback"

I tend to think in simple terms, and things like these confuse/disturb me. My conclusion here, would be to think that water vapor is not to be considered an anthropogenic greenhouse gas. The same scientists that are saying that CO2 is going to wipe us out, are telling us that human generated water vapor is not significant.

Water vapor is one of the most important elements of the climate system. A greenhouse gas, like carbon dioxide, it represents around 80 percent of total greenhouse gas mass in the atmosphere and 90 percent of greenhouse gas volume.

Claims that water vapor is the "dominant" driver of recently observed climate change are spurious at best. While uncertainties in the magnitude of water vapor feedbacks are one of the key areas concerning climate change, none of this research casts any doubt on the role of carbon dioxide and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases as the initial forcings behind our current climate perturbation.

Would you agree that, regardless of it's residence time, humans are pumping more and more water vapor into the atmosphere every day, month, year?

and

If that's the case, couldn't the perpetual and increasing release of water vapor by humans create short term heating, (which of course, would not be short term, because it is perpetual), thereby raising temperatures significantly enough to increase water vapor concentrations further, through evaporation..................and eventually becoming a self feeding, (and slowly inceasing), mechanism?

Suppose I was to sit those Yale scientists in an enclosed room, (which would represent our finite atmospere). Now I set a pot of water on the stove and bring it to a boil, (which would represent both the heat, and the water vapor that humans are putting into the atmosphere). Every time the water in the pot gets low, I refill it.

Would they be able to look me in the eye and tell me that, due to it's short residency, the water vapor is having no lasting effect on the atmoshere inside that room?

It is plausible, and debatable.

Elevated values of water vapor exist near the equator where evaporation rates are greatest. Saturation of water vapor near point sources drives down its residence time. Water vapor existing throughout the atmosphere is most influenced by evaporation? Well that is the arguement...

Anybody that tries to argue that humans have zero impact on the atmosphere/climate are just ignorant.

What gets me angry is when data is filtered through organizations like the IPCC, that does have an agenda, and the public is fed............. not objective observations of the climate, but only the data that goes to prove that CO2 is the only culprit behind global warming.

I'll be interested to see what shakes out from California's cap and trade scheme, which rolls out this year. It's interesting to note, that about 98% of the covered entities can't pack up and leave the state. My prediction is that some rich people are going to become richer, and the price of living in CA is going to increase further for the people that still have jobs and haven't already become wards of the state. My hope is that the corruption behind cap and trade will be exposed there, before it is unleashed on the rest of us.

Did you know that in 2011, the US exported more gasoline and other petroleum products than we imported?.........................we also hit record highs on coal exports. Oh, the hypocrisy!

Here is one of the most well written pieces on the subject that I've seen.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

I would agree. But what is left is the real possibility of BOTH, societal instability as well as real environmental instability. There will be definite societal instability if the latter is real, whether or not it precedes it The societal instability should already be for people to search for real answers. I'm afraid not enough are doing what you are doing, kramarat. And in the end, even if/when you come to a satisfactory answer to your mind, you'll have to find some way to synthesize and convey what you've learned on a fairly large scale. If it's a confirmation, that we are, indeed, going to hell in a hand basket, you will probably decide there is no way to prevent it.

I've got what I think is a real answer.....................at least a start. I'll start a thread soon.

...soon... H-m-m-m... Have a good weekend.

Well, it's a social engineering solution, so I'm not sure how to approach it. That's a lie...........................I'm trying to poke my own holes in my idea before I subject myself to the brutal tribulation of CR4.

I'll drink on it a little more. You have a good weekend too. I'm a lot calmer with the holidays over. I don't like them, but I have to for other's sake.

Depends on whether they were hyperventilating during that time.

The quest that we are all interested in here is going to result in, I think, at best, a crude estimation. But that's more than we know about at the moment.

We do have apples and oranges from the git-go, because no matter what information we accumulate from the past, we have to assume it doesn't include any industrialized species like us. (Unless the REAL reason the dinosaurs went extinct is they -- or someone -- were highly evolved and messing around with technology to capture a huge asteroid that was coming close to earth.) I think the argument by those who poo-poo global warming advocates conclusions, is, even at 7 billion, our impact on earth's systems is still insignificant. That is the $64,000 question.

Then there's the narrow-minded view of, "Who cares? I'll be dead by the time any s**t hits the fan." In either case, those 2 perspectives don't encourage the proponents of them to put much energy into looking for answers that some here are seeking. Maybe this should become "Occupy Earth." If some of us start emailing people like I did, out of the blue, the numbers should predict that someone will cough up something, whether it's phlegm, helpful info. or even water vapor.

(As an aside, I think one component of an engineering mentality applied to this problem/question, is elegance of design. A no-impact design (as in zero effect on the environment) would be part of an ideal elegance. We usually try to "engineer" the "ideal" amplifier, for instance, in electronics. Also, designs tend to be conservative to prevent failure. And that is what many advocates of limiting greenhouse gases are really saying -- "If we might be affecting weather systems to the degree that we could kill millions of people due to drought, etc., then why no err on the side of caution?" Well, now, it's because we've built our whole societal paradigm around petroleum. "Help, I'm addicted to oil and I can't get off.")

When reasonable people start calling out those who either want to ignore an issue, or deal with it using smoke and mirrors, something's bound to happen... at least we can hope.

If only we could get a meaningful reality TV show based on this sort of inquiry... we could bypass a lot of people who should be doing what we're doing, on our behalf. Maybe they exist and we just don't know where they are. The web and the world is a pretty big place. And it certainly wouldn't be the first time there were voices crying in the wilderness.

New here?

http://cr4.globalspec.com/search/sitesearch?do=show&sort=objecttype&srch=climate%20change&order=asc

http://cr4.globalspec.com/search/sitesearch?do=show&sort=objecttype&srch=global%20warming&order=asc