fossil fuel use - get used to it

Great Debates
1

I don’t know if everyone got the chance to watch PBS’s excellent joint Nova/Frontline special, “What’s Up With the Weather?,” on April 18.

Though it was well-made, the general tone of it left me very pessimistic.

I know some disagree as to whether our fossil fuel use and increased CO2 emissions are affecting the global climate in a profoundly negative way. The show pretty much convinced me that scientific evidence exists that it is.

Check out www.pbs.org

Even the most sophisticated super-computers, however, don’t seem to be able to definitively say what will happen as the CO2 emissions continue to increase, which they inevitably will.

What I found most interesting is how basically powerless we are to stop it even if we wanted to.

The world needs something like 30 trillion kilowatts of power right now – a number that’s expected to triple in coming decades as poorer nations begin to catch up with their technology.

The Kyoto Treaty, where the U.S. pledged with other industrialized nations to reduce CO2 emissions to below 1990 levels by 2010, was rejected 95-0 by the Senate. It will never be passed here.

A big flaw in the treaty was that ‘emerging nations’ refused to sign, essentially saying it’s not fair that they don’t get to rise to the level that America and other Western nations have reached.

Thus, the treaty is utterly useless, and even environmental advocates who have their thinking caps on agree.

Alternative energy sources such as wind and solar can’t cut it. In fact, to meet the world’s expected need for energy, two-thirds of the earth would need to be covered by windmills and solar panels.

Nuclear energy could be a solution, but we haven’t figured out how to deal with the waste and other risks in a way that society will accept.

The bottom line seems to be that gas, oil and coal will be with us for a very long time, regardless of whatever harm it’s doing to the environment. And there’s not a whole lot that can be done about it.

Agree or disagree?

Give me immortality, or give me death!

2

Sadly, I agree. I saw the special, too. What a downer. They didn’t exactly offer much encouragement, did they?

It really looks like nuclear is the only way to go to fight greenhouse emissions. Ironically, the same environmentalists who are all het up about greenhouse gases are the same ones who will fight, tooth-and-nail, any proposal for expanding, or even researching, our nuclear options. (Sorry Greens, but solar and wind power are not enough to get the job done.)

That was the most depressing program I have watched in a looooong time.

3

There is actually a solution to this. Photosynthesis on a truly grand scale will eliminate the co2 by-product of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, deforestation is making this less and less effective. So what about alternative fuels? Nuclear power, if properly handled seems to be the way to go. Unfortunately, nuclear power is not portable. We are years and years away from nuclear cars, and even if we weren’t, can you imagine an accident on the freeway…

Radio: This is newschopper 7 for traffic. There’s been a collision in the northbound lane of I-5, I-5 is expected to be closed for approximately 5 years until the road crews can get in to repair the giant blast crater. Motorists are advised to find another route.

So, what about alternative car fuels? Alcohol has been proposed, and is cleaner burning than petroleum, however it is messy to produce thusly making us no better off. Electric cars are at this point impractical, altough this seems the most likely eventual path. The difficulty with electric cars is the difficulty of getting a battery with a significant charge in a vehicle of normal size and weight.

The other thing is that the oil companies themselves are so powerful a force in today’s economy that we cannot just turn away from them so easily.

“All men spoke of his prowess…except for a couple of people in his home village who though he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him.” -Terry Prachett - The Light Fantastic

4

Not exactly. If we can come up with a workable electric car, we can then power it using electricity produced by nuclear plants. Presto! Portable nuclear power!

5

Natural sumps of Carbon are used for Man’s benefit. I would think that Man (in an act of self-preservation) should expend some effort to gather and pool Carbon. Is anybody thinking about this? How much Carbon is still trapped in resevoirs. How could Carbon Dioxide be collected and pooled. Is this in the realm of Science Fiction? (reference:Mother of Stormsby John Barnes)

Is technology able to compete with Mother Nature at all in this matter?

When the wheels come off, it’s time to retire.

6

I remove carbon from the biosphere ALL THE TIME! How? Simple, when I cut the grass I bry the clippings-In fact we should all chip down trees and plant new ones-this is a nifty way to remove excess CO2!
And why is global warming such a bad thing? If Minnesota starts to have a climate like present-day Florida, then property values will go up! And what about the barren wastes of Arctic Canada/Greenland-some mighty good beachfront property in the years to come, I daresay!

7

I think that we need to reasses our priorities when it comes to fossil fuel use. Do we want cheap oil in the short term, with no thought towards the future? That seems to be the way it is right now.

There are, however, options http://bvsd.k12.co.us/schools/cent/Newspaper/oct-nov99/stories/miller.html . The trick is getting people to realize that Exxon and GM will respond to what consumers want. Right now consumers want $1.00 a gallon gas and gas guzzling SUV’s. Once people change their attitudes and realize that a car doesn’t need to go 0-60 in 5 seconds with a top speed of 175, alternative powered vehicles will catch on.

“And so he says to me ‘I don’t like the cut of your jib’. And I go, I says, ‘but it’s the only jib I’ve got baby’.”

8

adam yax-

They covered hydrogen-powered cars in this PBS special. I can’t recall the reason, but they were not seen as a viable solution on a large scale. (Maybe it was because of the energy required to produce the hydrogen? Milossarian, do you recall what the problem was?)

9

Once people change their attitudes and realize that a car doesn’t need to go 0-60 in 5 seconds with a top speed of 175, alternative powered vehicles will catch on.

The problem with alternative fuel has nothing to do with speed - the General Motors EV1, for example, goes from 0-60 in under 9 seconds and would be capable of over 180 if it dodn’t have a circuit that limited it to 80. The problem has more to do with range (the EV1, like most electric cars that have been built, has a useful range of less than 100 miles), cost (things like batteries, fuel cells, massive DC motors, chargers, etc. are highly expensive - the EV1 costs over $30,000 for a 3 year lease, and the Toyota Prius costs over $20,000, but Toyota is supposedly selling them below cost to get the market flowing), and fuel availability (There’s little point in owning an alternative fuel vehicle if you can’t refuel it easily)

Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

10

Electric cars suck ass. Not only do they not perform to the standards of a good 'ol internal combustion powered vehicle, but they don’t help the environment any, either! What about the huge amount of used batteries, which are a hazardous waste? Then, all you are really doing is transferring the pollution from the individual vehicles to the power plant that has to generate the additional load to power these vehicles. Everybody loses, but hey! The enviros get to feel good about something!

http://www.killersurf.com/mojo

11

I probably won’t get this right, because I suck at chemistry. It had something to do with the fact that finding mass quantities of hydrogen isn’t the easiest thing to do. The best source is water, but something about the process of extracting it creates CO2 - the problem they’re trying to avoid in the first place.

Give me immortality, or give me death!

12

Originally posted by Bad-Mojo:

The theory is that a big power plant will be able to produce electric energy for motive power more efficiently and with less pollution than a small internal combustion engine can produce motive power.
Speaking of which, nuclear power plants are not exactly pollution-free. The spent fuel rods will remain dangerously radioactive for thousands of years, and no one has yet come up with a good long-term storage solution. Plus, raw nuclear fuel materials aren’t renewable resources.

13

“Huge amount of used batteries” -Bad Mojo

I think you mean “huge amount of batteries that can be recharged daily for several years and recycled once they have worn out”. Automobile batteries have been safely recycled for decades.

14

Re alchohol & electric cars: you folks DO know that these, while perhaps polluting a bit or a lot less, do nothing to help the Global-warming/CO2 problem, right? As far as pollution goes, Volvo has a new car w/ NEGATIVE pollution. But it still emits CO2 &H2O.

As far as “alternate” power goes, remember TANSTAAFL? Solar power may well cause long term climatological changes, due to changes in the Albedo (not a problem @ current usage). And wind power, also might cause climate changes thru deflecting winds, and chops raptors up like so much cheap eagleburger. Still, they are much safer & less damaging than burning Coal.

They still have not enuf data to prove increased CO2/ Global warming. The original calculations forgat that as the “greenhouse” increases, so does albedo. (and please, if you don’t even know what “albedo” means, don’t bother to tell me solar’s perfecrly safe, or that the greenhouse effect will have the icecaps melted tomorrow). However, that does not mean we should ignore the problem.

Less polluting and higher milage cars can & have been done. Congress should stop kissing the auto industries ass long enuf to put some teeth in the regs. Let’s do this, at least.

Let’s rethink Nuclear. Let’s seriously work on Fusion. Let’s expand solar & wind. Let’s look at other power like ocean gradient, tidal, and some others. If we do all this, we will really reduce pollution, reduce fossil fuel use, and slow global warming.