JoeStrout wrote:You disparage the whole field based on nothing but the garbage spoon-fed you by right-wing nut jobs who tried for years to avoid taking responsibility for the damage we're doing,
Joe, I agree with you 100%, but throwing out the line
"right-wing nut jobs" does about as much good as MSimon disparaging the whole field based on nothing.
Joe, dont think I dont want to freakin strangle MSimon when he goes off the deep end, but then I remind myself that generally I don't go to an engineer for political wisedom.
Roger
It the above is not an example of piling on then I don't know what is. So in answer to your question "yes that is so." Because of timing (it took me over two hours to finish my post initially due to distractions) I appeared to be piling on myself. This was impolite of me. Politeness is called for in this issue because groups and specific individuals have turned this into a political power play which is detestable.
We'll know who was right in, I estimate, about seven years. Call it 2015 or so. By that time the nits who've turned this into such an acrimonious confrontation will have found some other money/power play to push so the answer will only produce a big yawn in the general public.
At this point because of the power play, science will lose its omniscience.
Good.
BTW all I am claiming is an engineer's claim.
Neither the data, nor the science, nor the models have undergone an engineering audit. That is a fact.
I have my suspicions (which I have voiced). However, my only claim is that the science, data, and models have not undergone a public audit as rigorous as what the FAA requires to certify an aircraft.
I hope we can all agree that it ought to be done. It is one sure way to quiet this doubter. Probably many others.
Well I'm an engineer. Doubt is my profession. In my profession we allay doubt by doing a design review.
MSimon wrote:If we can use the process for fuel it will still require a 20 yr. roll out.
Sadly I agree with you. I don't doubt that the engineers and venture capitalists could gear up in under a decade but the special interest lobbyists from a very broad spectrum would be fighting like hell.
I suspect that there will be many more special interests lobbying for BFRs than against them. Here's my reasoning...
The cost of Energy is one of the prime drivers of our economy. It touches every item produced or transported. It factors into every service provided. If the cost of electricity drops by 80% then two things will happen: the business world will have a ton of extra capital with which to work and consumers will have a lot of extra money to spend/save/invest. The overall economic impact of inexpensive electricity, even without electrifying the transportation sector, will have such a dramatic impact on the nation's GDP that more people/corporations will be rolling in dough than will be rolling in ashes.
I imagine that economists can make a case for/against any particular sector/niche being helped/hurt in a cheap-energy transition, but overall I suspect that the winners will far outweigh the losers. This imbalance of benefits will probably be reflected by the lobbying in the halls of power, with the predictable results.
We'll know all in 20 years.
Dean.
BTW, y'all let a heated discussion of [censored] material derail a potentially interesting topic. Anyone interested in revisiting this? MSimon, you said you'd add more predictions to your list on the fist page of this thread. Bring them on!
JoeStrout wrote:You disparage the whole field based on nothing but the garbage spoon-fed you by right-wing nut jobs who tried for years to avoid taking responsibility for the damage we're doing,
Joe, I agree with you 100%, but throwing out the line
"right-wing nut jobs" does about as much good as MSimon disparaging the whole field based on nothing.
Joe, dont think I dont want to freakin strangle MSimon when he goes off the deep end, but then I remind myself that generally I don't go to an engineer for political wisedom.
Roger, that was a brilliant statement. Never ask a specialist for information outside his specialty. The Greeks figured that one out a long time ago and gave it a special name.
JoeStrout wrote:You disparage the whole field based on nothing but the garbage spoon-fed you by right-wing nut jobs who tried for years to avoid taking responsibility for the damage we're doing,
Joe, I agree with you 100%, but throwing out the line
"right-wing nut jobs" does about as much good as MSimon disparaging the whole field based on nothing.
Joe, dont think I dont want to freakin strangle MSimon when he goes off the deep end, but then I remind myself that generally I don't go to an engineer for political wisedom.
Roger, that was a brilliant statement. Never ask a specialist for information outside his specialty. The Greeks figured that one out a long time ago and gave it a special name.
Depends. I have spent a lot of time looking at the engineering aspects of the GW "problem". The level of the "science" is abominable. Why? Well it is a problem of more than climate (geology, technology, economics, computer modeling, solar/plasma physics etc.) and yet only climate folks have inputs.
Plus global temps have been steady for the last 8 or 10 years and this past Jan was .3C lower than the average of the last 8 or 10 years.
We may be entering a little ice age - as solar scientists predict.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
JD wrote:It this effort of Dr. Bussard works out (or one of the other three or four I've heard of) what sort of economic turmoil do you expect.
I just thought of another implication - the SUV will rule! Detroit loves big cars because that's where the profit margin is greatest. The market loves big cars because... Well, people buy them even when gas prices are high, so they must love them for some reason. (I drive a mid-life-crisis Red Dodge Magnum with the big Hemi ) If the transportation sector goes electric, and electricity is a guilt-free commodity, then Detroit (et. al.) will have no reason not to produce beasts as big as anyone could want.
kttopdad wrote: ...will have no reason not to produce beasts as big as anyone could want.
There seems to be an inexorable esclation for increasing vehicle size, really only limited by the cost of Energy. The driving variable seems to be the relative safety of the larger vehicles on the road. If BFRs work as well as we all hope, and no countering forces are at work, will most vehicles on the road eventually be the size of locomotives and possibly larger? If not, why not? Granted, the image of a 108 pound 22 year old legal secretary driving to her job downtown (safely) in a Locomotive looking vehicle is a little funny, but wouldn't it be the case?
As Carly said years back, Pave Paradise, make it a parking lot...
Hansen is a self serving political stooge that lost his credibility quite awhile back. The sun is the primary driver of climate, followed by continental distribution and followed a poor third by atmospheric composition (of which co2 is a very minuscule part of) These dictate our weather. Not pronouncements from Hansen, Suzuki, Gore whatever. Human contributions to CO2 levels have yet to get them noticeably above the planetary record lows currently in effect. You have to go back to the Carboniferous period to find level approaching this low point which was also technical an icehouse period, just as this one is. Earth's climate has normally been noticeably warmer than now with, I might add, higher levels of bio diversity and total biomass.
Okay, we warm the planet, by some mechanism, by say three degrees, so what? Better overall climate, fewer instances of sever weather. Now say we drop the average temp a degree or two then what? Prepare to donate to your preferred charity to help alleviate the widespread suffering that will occur. Bluntly, in the coming decades, we might come to wish we could actually cause noticeable warming of the planet's atmosphere.
If you want to forward an argument bring up something more credible than that tired old clown Hansen.
Roger wrote:So the solar scientists and Hansen agree on the possibility of a "small ice age" ?
Yep.
It is just the cause that is disputed and timing. Solar guys think it is underway without any significant change in the Thermocline circulation. Hanson says we need more CO2 and a change in ocean circulation.
BTW I think there has been a refutation of the Thermocline Hypothesis.
Let me also note that Jan temps were .3 deg C below the average for the last 10 years. That is about 1/2 the rise attributed to CO2. Yet the temperature falls despite increasing CO2.
This last 10 years of stagnation followed by significantly falling temperatures could mean an inflection point. If so I can see a day when "global warming" will be an epithet used to discredit junk science and good science.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
First, auditing the data that "supports" global warming is useless. The temperature data is pointless for this problem. The numbers are in the noise. Numbers in the noise don't matter for these kinds of problems. Just ask Lorenz.
The idea that global warming enthusiasts are using temperature as "proof" that global warming is happening is flawed logic because the measures don't prove jack. The idea of auditing numbers that don't prove anything just gives credence to a stupid position.
Second, we know that CO2 is very high right now - a third higher than it has ever been. We also know that temperature and CO2 levels have tracked very very closely to each other over the last half a million years. These are facts.
Therefore, the idea that, because CO2 is unprecidentedly high, our temperatures will rise a bunch is not necessarily that silly. It seems very reasonable and logical. When CO2 is high, it has always been hot. When CO2 is low, it has always been cold. Therefore, raising CO2 makes it hot.
This seemingly obvious logic is why lots of people don't do well on IQ tests and why people like Al Gore can manipulate so many of those people.
seedload wrote:Second, we know that CO2 is very high right now - a third higher than it has ever been. We also know that temperature and CO2 levels have tracked very very closely to each other over the last half a million years. These are facts.
Do YOU have thermometer readings going back a half million years?
Seems to suggest that CO2 causes it to get hot and cold doesn't it. Al Gore thought so. So do lots of people who watch The Incovienient Truth and see pictures like that with that giant green spike on the right.
The picture is really cool and convincing if you show CO2 then you show temperature and then you make 'em move together. Most people miss the flaw in the logic, so it is very convincing.
) If the transportation sector goes electric, and electricity is a guilt-free commodity, then Detroit (et. al.) will have no reason not to produce beasts as big as anyone could want. 
