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Climate Change Debate

If only we hadn't sold off state owned utilities...

Who was that again?
 
nimrod said:
Ignoring the idiosyncrasies of certain posters, the rising cost of nuclear does create a problem to the energy sector and we absolutely should be looking to technological advancement to try to find long term solutions. I wrote last year that there is a huge energy gap with large scale nuclear and coal and gas due to go offline over the next 8 years. With the delay in getting a nuclear programme up and running there is probably only natural gas to fill the gap.

It's all well and good to say "build our own", but which party is going to propose it and who's going to vote for it? How long would it take to establish a state owned utility capable of doing it?
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I wouldn't dispute much of that. The daft arse thing is that decent engineering solutions are out there even short term.
 
Its not a decent solution if it relies on an ever decreasing, ever more expensive, environmentally destructive fuel source.
 
But there are other fuel sources available such as AD, incinerators and mechanical recyclers. Couple that with large scale under soil heating which could heat and in some cases power most buildings directly there are technological alternatives.
 
Visage said:
Its not a decent solution if it relies on an ever decreasing, ever more expensive, environmentally destructive fuel source.
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Thorium anyone? There is loads of research out there on new technologies but bringing much of it to market seems troublesome.
 
If you question 'climate change' you appear to be a conspiracy nut. I'm still to work out what the real agenda is.

 
Papper said:
If you question 'climate change' you appear to be a conspiracy nut. I'm still to work out what the real agenda is.

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Nobody with a right mind questions 'Climate Change', it is the examination of the mechanisms involved that are being questioned.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
Nobody with a right mind questions 'Climate Change', it is the examination of the mechanisms involved that are being questioned.
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Yes but if you don't tow the official ' Al Gore' line you get the term conspiracy thrown at you quite a lot. Same with most other things. I've never been quite able to decide what the ultimate goal is or how beneficial it may be.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
I'm fully aware of that problem. Chucking away our own technology and not developing new technologies is criminal.
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Hang on - not so long ago you were saying we should stop research into Hydrogen cells and continue to rely on fossil fuels?

When you say 'new technology', to what are you referring?
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
Thorium anyone? There is loads of research out there on new technologies but bringing much of it to market seems troublesome.
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Thorium needs subsidies - and as you yourself said, 'Good technologies do not need significant subsidy.'....
 
Visage said:
Thorium needs subsidies - and as you yourself said, 'Good technologies do not need significant subsidy.'....
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Thorium technology development needs money but does implementation? Government money or venture capital?
No different to any other industry.
 
Such as the Hydrogen Fuel cell industry, yes?
 
Visage said:
Such as the Hydrogen Fuel cell industry, yes?
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I would like to see something in that which challenges conventional wisdom of chemical exchange and other processes at play.
Why would you back hydrogen fuelcells over something more direct? Give me an efficient chemical process that can then recombine liberated hydrogen with oxygen. We are in perpetual motion here.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
I would like to see something in that which challenges conventional wisdom of chemical exchange and other processes at play.
Why would you back hydrogen fuelcells over something more direct? Give me an efficient chemical process that can then recombine liberated hydrogen with oxygen. We are in perpetual motion here.
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So you are dismissing Hydrogen fuel cells? Incineration, plastic recycling (mechanical as well as incineration) and anaerobic digestion as energy sources which are infinite and do not require a toxic substance to dispose of afterwards? I'm sure I'm telling my granny to suck eggs but why do you think that the energy exchange of any of these processes are inferior to nuclear and therefore do not require funding? Hydrogen fuel cells have been proven to work in cars but have not been taken up even though several engines have been acquired by the major car companies which have been proven to work.

I do not understand why you dismiss other energy sources can you please explain?
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
I would like to see something in that which challenges conventional wisdom of chemical exchange and other processes at play.
Why would you back hydrogen fuelcells over something more direct? Give me an efficient chemical process that can then recombine liberated hydrogen with oxygen. We are in perpetual motion here.
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Hmm. A way of recombining hydrogen with Oxygen to release energy?

Im stumped. Completely stumped. Though I seem to recall an experiment in the US that had some promising results:

260px-Hindenburg_burning.jpg
 
Premier Quality said:
the daily mail article is interesting though - whilst the mail is a junk paper, some of the people mentioned in the article aren't
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Its based on some very dodgy stats.

The underlyigng dataset mentioned in the article (HADCRUT 4) is freely available. Here's a graph of them:

crumod2.jpg


(You can compare the graph to the one printed in the Mail and see that they match)

Now, the timescale over which the Daily Mail says there was no global warming covers 1997 to present day. Notice anything interesting in that graph about 1997?

Put it another way - if you wished to show the long term trend of global temperature was flat, from where would you pick your starting point? Of all the years they chose, isnt it odd that they picked the one year (thanks to El Nino) that global temperatures had a temporary spike?

Would it not make more sense to look at a longer term average (highlighted by the trendline) ? But of course that wouldnt be nearly as sensational, would it?

All data is available at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/
 
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