Trees eventually die and, over time, return the carbon dioxide they absorb unless conditions favour the creation of coal and oil.
As long as we harvest them for housing and replant them faster than they decay we have an excellent method for capturing CO2. And we only have to do that until 2100. Not too difficult.
In fact if China and India continue planting trees may be the only thing the USA can do. Unless we start killing a lot more children. A nice big atomic war should provide the means for at least a temporary reduction.
Or we could turn off all the electricity in GB and starve out the UK. That is probably viable.
The Austrian Corporal was a piker in his call for lebensraum. We will do it in the name of atmosphere. A much bigger goal. And much more worthwhile too.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
alexjrgreen wrote:This stuff is good. You ought to write a book to put it in.
You have a positive talent for constructing straw men.
Dude. Until you come up with a replacement for coal and oil that is economical restricting it is going to kill children.
The biggest straw man of all is AGW. Evidently you can get people to believe anything as long as you put the words "computer" and "scientists" into the sentence. i.e. "Famous scientists who are called doctor with really big computers have shown today that there is a definite possibility the world will run out of water due to evaporation. Dr. Dryspell posits that 150 years of evaporation will completely empty the oceans if the world's temperatures rise to 110 C. Dr. Dryspell suggests that if everyone gave up cigarette smoking many lives would be saved since the oceans would not dry up for 151 years."
BTW the UK is well along the path of cutting off its electric supply or becoming dependent on Russian gas. Possibly both.
Well any way. I'm glad the UK is doing the experiment. Better you than us. Lead the way. And pray for a warm winter.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
At the moment the UK is committed to cutting greenhouse gases by a third by 2020.
However a new report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research said these targets are inadequate to keep global warming below two degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
The report says the only way to avoid going beyond the dangerous tipping point is to double the target to 70 per cent by 2020.
This would mean reducing the size of the economy through a "planned recession".
Kevin Anderson, director of the research body, said the building of new airports, petrol cars and dirty coal-fired power stations will have to be halted in the UK until new technology provides an alternative to burning fossil fuels.
And of course a reduction of 70% in 10 years is only possible by destroying the UK economy. He is really quite clever when he says a planned recession. It will be a planned depression. With wartime rationing.
India has already said it is not going along with any Copenhagen tripe. China has said "We will do what we can" i.e. install a few wind mills for show.
The US Congress has said: if India and China don't go along we are not going to commit suicide either.
I guess it will be up to the Brits and the Continentals to save the planet.
My guess is that a 300% reduction in CO2 output may have some small effect. Good on ya mates.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
"Ascribing ‘greenhouse’ effect properties to the Earth’s atmosphere is not scientifically substantiated. Heated greenhouse gases, which become lighter as a result of expansion, ascend to the atmosphere only to give the absorbed heat away.”…..”Instead of professed global warming, the Earth will be facing a slow decrease in temperatures in 2012-2015. The gradually falling amounts of solar energy, expected to reach their bottom level by 2040, will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-2060,”
–Habibullo Abdussamatov
-Head, space research laboratory, Russian Academies of Sciences’ Pulkovo Observatory
-Head, Astrometry project, being conducted on the Russian 1/2 of the International Space Station
ScienceDaily (Oct. 6, 2009) — Billions of tonnes of water droplets vanish from the atmosphere in events that reveal in detail how the Sun and the stars control our everyday clouds. Researchers of the National Space Institute in the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have traced the consequences of eruptions on the Sun that screen the Earth from some of the cosmic rays -- the energetic particles raining down on our planet from exploded stars.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 6, 2009) — Billions of tonnes of water droplets vanish from the atmosphere in events that reveal in detail how the Sun and the stars control our everyday clouds. Researchers of the National Space Institute in the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have traced the consequences of eruptions on the Sun that screen the Earth from some of the cosmic rays -- the energetic particles raining down on our planet from exploded stars.
Not enough, perhaps. The cosmic rays seed the clouds which drive the refrigeration cycle. Less cosmic rays = less clouds = extra warming.
That would mean you could counteract global warming by using artificial cosmic rays to seed clouds. Any resemblance to the work of Wilhelm Reich is entirely coincidental...
ScienceDaily (Oct. 6, 2009) — Billions of tonnes of water droplets vanish from the atmosphere in events that reveal in detail how the Sun and the stars control our everyday clouds. Researchers of the National Space Institute in the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have traced the consequences of eruptions on the Sun that screen the Earth from some of the cosmic rays -- the energetic particles raining down on our planet from exploded stars.
Not enough, perhaps. The cosmic rays seed the clouds which drive the refrigeration cycle. Less cosmic rays = less clouds = extra warming.
That would mean you could counteract global warming by using artificial cosmic rays to seed clouds. Any resemblance to the work of Wilhelm Reich is entirely coincidental...
Some one stealing your Orgones Alex?
BTW Svensmark's research was done at CERN and has been peer reviewed.
Now we have a quiet sun (after a couple of decades of the highest solar output for 200 years, 1,000 years, or 11,000 years - depending on who you trust) and a low solar magnetic field meaning more clouds and a cooler climate. The solar guys expect this to go on until 2040 or so. With cooling peaking around 2055 or 2060.
BTW the cloud hypothesis explains how a lower solar output of .1% can cause a much larger cooling than strict solar energy change can account for. BTW the solar magnetic field has declined by 20% to the lowest level since measurements started (about 180 years or so ago) . And it is still declining.
Note: even the IPCC head expects cooling until 2020.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
One of the simplest and obviously practical means for carbon capture has been proposed by James Lovelock. That is; reduce bio-mass to charcoal (viz. by combustion in a limited oxygen supply) then bury/store it. You also get some useful heat energy out at the same time. I'm really surprised that this method isn't more widely touted. It has obvious benefits, and given the new bubble market in carbon credits [15th century persons would know these as 'indulgences'] you could actually usefully pay people in foreign lands to grow biomass then reduce it to charcoal, and pay them for the volume of charcoal they bury.
I have gone on to make the following 'challenging' speculation, just to crank the amusing debate; not all coal was formed by decomposition of trees, etc., it is also the remains of buried charcoal from attempted carbon capture from previous failed civilisations billions of years ago!
Not enough, perhaps. The cosmic rays seed the clouds which drive the refrigeration cycle. Less cosmic rays = less clouds = extra warming.
That would mean you could counteract global warming by using artificial cosmic rays to seed clouds. Any resemblance to the work of Wilhelm Reich is entirely coincidental...
Some one stealing your Orgones Alex?
BTW Svensmark's research was done at CERN and has been peer reviewed.
If it's not wet enough yet in Illinois just give Fermilab a ring...
chrismb wrote:One of the simplest and obviously practical means for carbon capture has been proposed by James Lovelock. That is; reduce bio-mass to charcoal (viz. by combustion in a limited oxygen supply) then bury/store it.
And this has a secondary benefit that if your actually mix it with soil it vastly improves the productivity and carbon capture capability of the soil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta