A Prediction Regarding Fusion Power

If polywell fusion is developed, in what ways will the world change for better or worse? Discuss.

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Mumbles
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But the PDO is cyclic?...

Post by Mumbles »

alexjrgreen wrote:
MSimon wrote:BTW if the PDO is a "surface" phenomenon (1,000 m) why should it affect methane release?
Clathrates occur at depths between 300 and 2000 metres.
But since the periodic nature of the PDO means that we have hit the highs and lows before, why haven't all the clathrates been cooked out previously? Thanks.

Be Safe
Mumbles

alexjrgreen
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Re: But the PDO is cyclic?...

Post by alexjrgreen »

Mumbles wrote:
alexjrgreen wrote:
MSimon wrote:BTW if the PDO is a "surface" phenomenon (1,000 m) why should it affect methane release?
Clathrates occur at depths between 300 and 2000 metres.
But since the periodic nature of the PDO means that we have hit the highs and lows before, why haven't all the clathrates been cooked out previously? Thanks.

Be Safe
Mumbles
METHANE HYDRATE STABILITY AND BREAKDOWN

The ocean temperature has to reach a base threshold.
Ars artis est celare artem.

flying_eagle
Posts: 62
Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:14 pm

Re: But the PDO is cyclic?...

Post by flying_eagle »

alexjrgreen wrote:
Mumbles wrote:
alexjrgreen wrote: Clathrates occur at depths between 300 and 2000 metres.
But since the periodic nature of the PDO means that we have hit the highs and lows before, why haven't all the clathrates been cooked out previously? Thanks.

Be Safe
Mumbles
METHANE HYDRATE STABILITY AND BREAKDOWN

The ocean temperature has to reach a base threshold.
You have several natural methane sources. One obvious one is where water and microbes activate a release from permafrost that is melting, or CO2 if drier.
Also in deeper cases, clathrate release from rising temps.
In the ocean you have a stability zone, an upper bound and lower bound for a given pressure and temp. Scientists used to just look at the time for solar thermal to penetrate. However, oceans are circulating and mixing times is shorter than just diffusion time. More importantly was the pressure side, rising seas affect the lower boundary causing it to rise and allow dissociations back to gas phase. If you check back in this post I gave a MIT study on how this can create even faster releases. Now, as additional CO2 and methane create more thermal forcing and feedbacks like albedo from loss of ice and more carbon black and warmer oceans, increase ice melting, we can have eventual glacial and then icesheet collapses, this will cause more rapid rise in sea level and again moving the lower stabilty zone to higher levels above the seafloor and causing more methane release. This too starts a cycle of positive feedback.
Last edited by flying_eagle on Fri Oct 02, 2009 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Mumbles
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Re: But the PDO is cyclic?...

Post by Mumbles »

alexjrgreen wrote:
Mumbles wrote:But since the periodic nature of the PDO means that we have hit the highs and lows before, why haven't all the clathrates been cooked out previously? Thanks.
METHANE HYDRATE STABILITY AND BREAKDOWN

The ocean temperature has to reach a base threshold.
I understand the concept that the clathrates will disolve if the water gets warmer (your word - "base threshold"). But the PDO - Pacific Decadal Oscillation - has been going on before... And the water temps have been warmer and cooler in the past... So why would more or less "cook out" now than in previous warm-water cycles? Thanks.

Be Safe
Mumbles

--------------------
EDIT - FlyingEagle beat me to the answer to this post. Thanks for the explaination...

flying_eagle
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Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:14 pm

Re: But the PDO is cyclic?...

Post by flying_eagle »

Mumbles wrote:
alexjrgreen wrote:
Mumbles wrote:But since the periodic nature of the PDO means that we have hit the highs and lows before, why haven't all the clathrates been cooked out previously? Thanks.
METHANE HYDRATE STABILITY AND BREAKDOWN

The ocean temperature has to reach a base threshold.
I understand the concept that the clathrates will disolve if the water gets warmer (your word - "base threshold"). But the PDO - Pacific Decadal Oscillation - has been going on before... And the water temps have been warmer and cooler in the past... So why would more or less "cook out" now than in previous warm-water cycles? Thanks.

Be Safe
Mumbles

--------------------
EDIT - FlyingEagle beat me to the answer to this post. Thanks for the explaination...
Here are various dissociation reasons. The first obvious one is what is happening now in the arctic due to warmer water coming from tropical and subtropical zones that mix with arctic circulations. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... le-up.html
while othe regions including the arctic will be affect by pressure changes further into the future.
Regarding PDO, and other oscillations, these are part of local climate variability and are related to oceans and air mass interfaces. These signals along with solar and Milankovitch cycles, gyres and AMOC, all can mask the overall trend if studied in short time frames. Some of these are negative reducing the AGW affect while others can reinforce it in a local area. One should not be confused as ocean average temperatures are rising and increasily becoming more acidic. The thermal mass of the ocean is what has kept temperatures lagging from what they would be without them in terms of calcuating the GW effect. Also we see the occasional volcano make dips and our own aerosol pollution is also masking some of the effects.

flying_eagle
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Post by flying_eagle »

MSimon wrote:
"...because you can see the truth when so many are blind..."
Let’s see back in 2006 a 30 country poll indicates that a clear majority believe that global warming is a serious threat.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/ ... d=&pnt=187
Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion against climate change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... ate_change

"The question for me is: is this the right 13 year old? Is she Jean d'Arc or just another peasant girl with delusions of grandeur or maybe catastrophe."
No delusions, a bright healthy peasant who has no political motive and an honest child who only wanted to tell the truth of what happened to her.
As far as writing her off, it seems science is supporting her prediction. She was gifted enough to say that there was two possible futures and describe each in detail including how CO2 and methane increase as the years go by in one of them. Believe me more detail about suffering and death than you really want to know about. I don't think you would have wanted to see those images of mass starvations and disease and people dying so fast that they werent even buried and are thrown in the seas. Believe me, no one would want that future.

She said we must deal with it and we will, however she warns that many are working against doing something about it. She gives us about a 75% chance of solving the problem in time. But she has faith that we will solve it in time. It will be hard for us to do but we have no choice.

BTW, her abilites are far beyond just having visions and hearing when she wants them.

Msimon I have a deep respect for you, I hope that you will afford that same respect to a child who will have to live in a world we leave behind.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

alexjrgreen wrote:
MSimon wrote:BTW if the PDO is a "surface" phenomenon (1,000 m) why should it affect methane release?
Clathrates occur at depths between 300 and 2000 metres.
Obviously we need to capture the CH4 and burn it into the less effective green house gas CO2 ASAP. It is a disaster waiting to happen. And has happened every 30 years. We are not only doomed but we have been destroyed at least twice in the last 100 years.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

fe,

Science is not done by poll. It is done by evidence. Now it only takes one bit of evidence to discredit a method or hypothesis. I have at minimum two serious bits of evidence.

1. Measured Gain
2. Alternative explanation for 1980 to 2005 "unprecedented" (it is not) temperature rise.

By citing polls I can tell you are not serious. Do you trouble shoot your circuits by polling the folks at the local McDonalds?

And what if you get your way, it cripples the economy and the AGW hypothesis is proved wrong? I hope you will for ever thinking about all the children you killed. It will be in the multi-millions.

What are you going to do about India and China?

Get the durn prediction machines fixed. Do some runs. Then get back to me.

A gain of .5 says the whole AGW hypothesis is nonsense and in fact accords with Lindzen's Iris theory. And if the PDO has been aliased into CO2 it is even worse. If India and China don't start cutting back at once (condemning their people to poverty) anything the USA does is less than useless.

It would be fun discussing the subject with people not totally absorbed in faith based science. But I like shooting fish in a barrel. So either way I'm enjoying myself.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

fe,

CO2 has been increasing for the last 10 years and is at unprecedented levels.

Temperatures have stalled and may in fact be falling.

1. Explain to me why no one in the AGW camp predicted this. Despite knowing about the PDO since 1997. Kinda sloppy don't ya think? For science.

2. Explain why if the science is so solid all the publicly funded models with all their input data and source code have not been published. You know that science thing we hear so much about.

BTW I deserve no respect. Either my work passes muster or it doesn't. If it doesn't it deserves to be shot down. I LOVE design reviews. I show no quarter and expect none. I endeavor to be very careful in my work. I have a very big EGO and just HATE getting shot down. I use my EGO as an incentive system.

You should have been here when I was dumb as rocks stupid for a whole week. I was so good at it that I almost had some of the opposition convinced. Which just goes to show how far you can go with a bad argument.

BTW polls in America show that faith in AGW is decreasing. Can I use that as evidence that it is a bad theory? Can't wait to see the poll numbers after this winter if the predictions for 10 year record cold hold.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

fe,

You are really grasping when you quote the wiki on AGW. Do you know anything about that and the guy who edits it? He erases any dissenting opinion. By going to the wiki on this it shows either:

1. You are grasping
2. You haven't done your homework

Why don't you get the 13 year old to pontificate about the wiki. That should be good for humor. BTW the voices in MY head (which are at least as good as hers) tell me she is misinformed. She has contacted an evil spirit intent on hurting as many humans as possible. And you know those what those evil spirits always say, "We are just trying to be helpful."

If they were good spirits they would say: plant trees. It might do some good and will certainly do no harm - compared to shutting down industry. And not only that - there is profit in it.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

alexjrgreen
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Post by alexjrgreen »

MSimon wrote:If India and China don't start cutting back at once (condemning their people to poverty) anything the USA does is less than useless.
We have the technology, today, to capture all the CO2 produced by a coal fired power station. At a profit.

That's hardly going to condemn India and China to poverty...
Ars artis est celare artem.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

alexjrgreen wrote:
MSimon wrote:If India and China don't start cutting back at once (condemning their people to poverty) anything the USA does is less than useless.
We have the technology, today, to capture all the CO2 produced by a coal fired power station. At a profit.

That's hardly going to condemn India and China to poverty...
Please advise on an operating plant using the technology and show how it has driven down electric rates. In addition please explain why it is not being used in coal plants all over the world. It seems unusual that an electric power company would forgo profits.

The only thing I have seen on it is that it is not available and if available would drive up electricity costs by 30% or more. Plus the CO2 would have to be stored some where. Where would that be?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

alexjrgreen
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Joined: Thu Nov 13, 2008 4:03 pm
Location: UK

Post by alexjrgreen »

MSimon wrote:
alexjrgreen wrote:
MSimon wrote:BTW if the PDO is a "surface" phenomenon (1,000 m) why should it affect methane release?
Clathrates occur at depths between 300 and 2000 metres.
Obviously we need to capture the CH4 and burn it into the less effective green house gas CO2 ASAP. It is a disaster waiting to happen.
Quite a few entrepreneurs are ahead of you on that.
MSimon wrote:And has happened every 30 years. We are not only doomed but we have been destroyed at least twice in the last 100 years.
Obviously not, but if the average ocean temperature rises a bit more then the current slight outgassing would become more substantial.
Ars artis est celare artem.

alexjrgreen
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Location: UK

Post by alexjrgreen »

MSimon wrote:Please advise on an operating plant using the technology and show how it has driven down electric rates. In addition please explain why it is not being used in coal plants all over the world. It seems unusual that an electric power company would forgo profits.

The only thing I have seen on it is that it is not available and if available would drive up electricity costs by 30% or more. Plus the CO2 would have to be stored some where. Where would that be?
A friend of mine got together with some guys in Hawaii to come up with a surfer's answer to high CO2.

It's currently being patented and a pilot plant is planned. If you know a coal fired power station owner who's interested I can put them in touch...
Ars artis est celare artem.

flying_eagle
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Post by flying_eagle »

MSimon wrote: ...BTW I deserve no respect. Either my work passes muster or it doesn't. If it doesn't it deserves to be shot down. I LOVE design reviews. I show no quarter and expect none. I endeavor to be very careful in my work. I have a very big EGO and just HATE getting shot down. I use my EGO as an incentive system....
At least you are honest with yourself. Yes, respect is offered and given. It is the individual who should show respect to others, compassion and understanding to others, a caring and peace towards others as well. Above all, one should have humility about themselves and realize that they are no more special than anyone else and even better, realize that they are no more special than the animals and plants that also share our biosphere. When one realizes this, the self becomes less important and the harmony and well being of all living beings becomes even more important (I learned that from a little teacher and the wise spirits that taught her that).

Part of the humility allows us to realize that we are learning and no one has all the answers or is totally enlightened. But working together we can solve the problems that face us.

Surely as an engineer, you can find ways to improve the lives of others. You are not going to say, why I can design an electric car with zero emissions if I also incorporate larger solar or fusion based systems to power it, but I prefer the old method of combustion and oil changes and soot out of diesel or gas engines while they sit idling in traffic jams that these heat engines are now only consuming without doing any real work just to get someone eventually to work or perform commerce. Or find ways to feed the masses without paying a heavy toll on the environment in terms of resource usage and waste. Surely such smart minds such as yourself can solve these problems without clinging to the past, resisting the change toward sustainability.

Engineers love solving problems, and there is plenty of opportunity for that.

You see those that fear the change, haven't thought out the possibilities. Executives of oil companies can still use their product for plastics instead of combustion into the atmosphere. They can diversify into renewable and fusion power and truly become energy corporations into the future.

Also because of some electrical engineering background, I can see a near future world driven on an electric economy, where all transportation except for airplanes are electric and airplanes for now needed biofuel and computers running our world in an efficient manner. Yes, I see plenty of opportunities for electrical engineers, civil, mechanical, etc.

They say the need is the mother of invention and with so many problems, those individuals who are dedicated not to themselves but to the others can protect the biosphere and all its inhabitance and lift the well being of all. To solve problems and help others, I sure that is why you wanted to be an engineer and it is to those problems that I dedicate my talents for.

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