The End of The Age of Oil...

Jason_15

Brian

I'll take my woodchuck merit badge! Seriously, that was a great post. All well said. I was just reinforcing my strong pro-nuclear sentiment during this thread, but the truth is a liitle bit of everything is the best course of action.... Damn, I really hope you are right that the end of oil is a long ways out.... Not to sound selfish but I am 33 years old and I hope I'm gone before oil is! Kudos to you....

Unknown

Interesting post, but you have a few holes that jump out at me.

first, the problem is not that we are "running out" of oil. There is a lot of oil left. The problem is, we cannot keep up with demand in terms of how fast we can produce it. This is hard and fast as we currently stand; we can't even build more capacity fast enough to keep up with demand anymore. Even if we "caught back up" later, we're looking at at least a few years of very high energy prices.

Let the market figure it out? Oh it will, as it usually does. Energy prices go up, and depression ensues.

I am sorry I don't have time for a more detailed review of your post and a suitable response, you did a great job outlining your views and I feel a bit disrespectful responding so briefly, but I would be interested in your take on this selected bit. Domestic production capabilities are but a fraction of demand here at home, even if we drill like mad, and the middle east... well, how fast do you think they want to ramp up production when less means more money to them?

We're pretty screwed, as far as every indicator I've seen shows.

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Dale Pickard

Incredible

Incredibly naive that is.

Brian's got it figured out. No question about it, things will change and we and the other living things will adapt or not.

I don't know about the woodchuck award. How about we establish the Alfred E. Neumann award for best imitation of an ostrich!

Dale

Tony_8

well written

How clear.

I was going to abstain from this one. You said it all. Thank you.

BTW, there's thousands (maybe millions) of oil wells untapped and unlpugged with oil in the bottom. And if you think we can't build infrastructure fast enough for new, explain how it was done in the 1880's with wooden derricks and horses. I live 5 miles from the first successful oil well in NYS, and while proximity doesn't make me an expert, growing up with an old oil man and all the evidence of their accomplishments makes me believe in what we can do when needed.

Dale Pickard

There you go

Don't worry, Be Happy!

We'll figure it out. Human beings, especially white american males, are so clever. If necessary, we'll just repeal entropy, as soon as it becomes cost effective.

Dale

GMcD

Untapped and un-used wells?

Maybe have another read through the data - even if the technology was improved to the point of extracting all that "uneconomical" oil left in the ground, the fact remains that western society is going to be using it up faster than it can be found and extracted. You can poke holes all over the ANWR, and the estimate is that there is about 6% to 9% worth of addition to the current American oil consumption levels, IF THEY REMAIN THE SAME AS THEY ARE TODAY. That doesn't even factor in the new "China syndrome" - which will be their needs and ever increasing petro-consumption over the next decade. They are already buying controlling interest in North American pipelines and part ownership of major oil production sources already. All you can do is prolong the agony.

jalcoplumb_2

No more PEX.....

What will I use? What will we make that Munchkin jacket out of? Back to glass soda bottle. I think cast-iron will make a comeback.

All are petroleum based.

Scott Toenniessen_3

re:Agent Provocateur

There is no proof that global warming exists. The so called "hockey stick" graph used to justify the Kyoto protocol and "prove" its existence in many debates is failing to hold up under review by others. In fact, one scientist found the method used to calulate it creates a hockey stick graph when fed random data. The graph also completely misses two notably events in history - a warming period 1,000 years or so ago and a mini ice age 700 years ago (neither caused by cars, airplanes or steel mills). Global warming - the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on humanity!

As for there being only 30 years of oil left, 20 years ago in junior high school social studies I was told that. So, shouldn't there only be 10 left now? In reality, no one knows how much is left undiscovered. As the price rises, companies are able to undertake more expensive recovery and exploration methods. Now will that keep up with new demand from the developing world (esp. China, India)? Maybe not, but....

There is a plan for conservation. Its called "when the price goes up, I'll use less". That could be - I'll turn my thermostat down or I'll buy more fuel effient cars and appliances. Whatever it is, it is simple economics. We don't live in a communist country where the government tells us all what to do. They don't need to tell us how much fuel to burn either. Dollars and cents will tell use that!

Leo G_99

including

a huge portion of the tar sands!

Leo G

Gordy

interesting

Imatellerslie,

Very interesting article, looks like new technology letting us revisit the old technology...Sorta like the flying wing had to wait for technology....poor analogy.

Gordy

Tony_8

Yes

When entire production fields are abandoned because wells that did produce 100's of barrels per day drop off to 20-30 barrels a day and it is then "uneconomical" to produce at $18 or less per barrel, there is quite a bit left untapped. $45+ / barrel makes it a little more economical. Besides, estimates and projections are just a crystal ball.

As far as China is concerned, let a lack of fuel be THEIR problem. If it costs them more than it does us maybe it'll make up for labor costs imbalances.

Tony Conner_2

I'd Bet...

... that in another 10 years, China & India will have enough industrial muscle to make sure that they don't lightly suffer shortages of anything. Combine this with the fact that both have HUGE populations. The potential for this to end very badly - and suddenly - on a global scale is a distinct possiblilty. It won't have to be because the oil "ran out", it will just have to be "there's not enough to share".

archibald tuttle

alfred e. neuman checking in

Funny that Alfred E. Neuman comes up. I had compared myself to the icon in the original verison of that post which went up in cyber-smoke when I got up from the computer long enough for my wife to grab the browser and not realizing I was on an input screen change the site and then close the window. I'm nothing if not self-deprecating, but I think Neuman was onto something when it comes to foregoing pessimism about the possibilities for the human condition - even if he didn't know it.

I am distinctly not pollyannish about the micro-effects here. I don't disagree that just because one can make an abstract case that the economy could come out unscathed from a signficant increase in energy cost that it will come out unscathed. I also concur with the point that the amount of oil in the ground is not the sole issue. Extraction technology and infrastructure, transportation and refining capacity have been the architectural components of the price spikes in refined commodities as much or more so than the price of a barrel of oil.

The last round of oil shortage in the 1970s is etched in my memory and it wasn't a happy economic time. Of course I think that the failure of the government response model at that time paved the way for freer economic decisions that are by no means perfect prophylaxis for future price increases but increase economic reilience.

As far as our competition for resources with China, some might consider that a macro-condition but I look at as more the background of this situation. Ownership of those resources does not indicate where they will be used. The economy will dictate that. In general, if Americans will pay more than Chinese concerns for the oil, they will get it. It is conceivable that China could attempt to gerrymander these supplies in a political way ala OPEC but this has nothing to do with whether we're running out of oil or whether the earth is warming (BTW China and India of course obtained developing world exemptions from Kyoto and they are burning coal as fast as they can while devoting oil to transportation. I don't have a problem in countries developing towards parity in energy use with US. I don't think we have some right to energy that they don't. But if the end of the world is really coming and Kyoto were anything more than another UN plan for weath redistribution these emissons would be addressed. )

My point is fundamentally that on the basis that we are worried about economic dislocations in the US of tighter energy markets the join Kyoto folks want us to commit economic suicide by artificially raising the price to what they fear it would rise to on its own. If one accepts the scare science, one also imports with that the assumption the fact that the extent of change in energy usage envisioned by the Kyoto protocol will address less than 10% of the modeled effects.

If you are going to live by the model you have to die by it. I don't believe the models because they don't hindcast relibably but if you buy the idea that they are a reliable distillation of the state of climate science then you must also accept that even the most vigorous and costly response envisioned will do virtually nothing. And many of these scare charlatans are saying that the existing change is so great as to be self-reinforcing in essentially irreversalbe anyway.

If one takes these arguments for granted there is absolutely no sense wasting a nickel of anyone's wealth trying to do anything about this except adapt. If the arguments are hyperbole intended to scare us into doing something about a lesser affect that is addressable how are we to establish where the hyperbole begins? I may be naive, but I try to be logically naive. Glad I at least invigorated the discussion if I did not enlighten it.

Brian

PS - had one note that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Glad I got that straight, but actually was a reference to National Lampoon's ANimal House:

Bluto: "Over???? Nothing's not over until we say it's over!!! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"

Boon: "Germans??"

Otter: "Forget it, he's rolling"

was imply that I was rolling. Didn't mean to be obscure, obtuse maybe but never obscure.

Ciao (better learn how to say that in Chinese)

GMcD

China's \"problem\"

Lack of fuel won't be just Chinas problem. They are using quiet economical warfare to purchase resources as quickly as they can. They will own substantial portions of North American petro production and pipeline infrastructure. What're you gonna do about that? March up to Canada and take them over (steal them?) The fact remains that those with the most bucks (or bigger guns) will get the mostest. Chinas economy over the next 10 years will be far bigger then our economy here in North America.

Let's leave greenhouse gas/global warming out of the arguement - the oil peak may be likely more of an oil plateau, but the biggest impact will be the inflation of the fossil fuel costs over the next 20 years. All of the buildings and systems we are designing right now will have to operate efficiently 20 years from now. Fossil fuels will become prioritized based on supply and demand- do we burn it for heat? Or do we use it for plastics and toys? Or do we use it for PEX tubing? When the supply of oil becomes very expensive, at what point does it get relegated to "strategic" uses?

Tony Conner_2

If Any...

... change that happens is gradual, then simple economics will dictate a large part of what happens. There's an economic rule that states the cheaper anything becomes, the more uses that will be found for it. The reverse is also true - the more expensive something becomes, cheaper things will be substituted, or people will just figure out how to use less of it.

billygoat22

Coal is also recycled- the Co2 is converted into wood which is used to build houses.
I've also heard of "bio-mass" suggested as a replacement for coal. Plants which use solar energy to convert CO2 into wood/biomass are burned in place of coal or oil in power plants. The process is self sustaining and no "wastes" are produced since the wastes and solar energy are raw materials.
Only snag is the land area required for this to work

Nuclear materials can have a half life of 20,000 years.
I suppose the nuke energy guys have a sizable account set aside for the babysitting expenses? Or do the taxpayers fund this cost.

Dale Pickard

OK Alfred

You make your thoughts and writing clear and you deserve a better response than my smart **** comments. The problem is that my perception is so different that I don't know where to begin. My comments kinda said it all.

When I read what you write, I think that you are willing to accept a great deal in terms of quality of life, human and othewise before you would admit to "economic impact". We are geared to see fast moving changes against a slow moving backdrop, not the other way around. People of my generation don't realize the heritage that we've lost in less than 100 years.
What does it take to create a crisis? It may not be a matter of putting so much crap in the air that the earth warms up so much that we have huge catastrophic events. Maybe it's a matter of putting so much crap in the air that it stinks and life is no fun when you can't breathe.

Humans have an amazing amount of hubris and disconnect from the systems that keep them alive. To deny the earth is to deny the sons of the earth, that's us. The ablitity to exploit huge amounts of stored solar energy over a couple of generations is meaning less in terms of a long term adaptive response to sustain the population that the earth is carrying.

Also I think that you don't seem to recognize the subsidies enjoyed by the conventional energy industries, in particular the oil industry, and especially in the US. The economic impact you seem to need to act has already happened in other developed countries. Undeveloped countries can't even get an oil based economy off the ground.

Finally I think that energy is not orange juice, there are no substitutes. At the same time, without energy, there is no organge juice, no green revolution agriculture, no sustainabliity for the developed countries that failed to find some soft energy path.

Dale

Dale Pickard

That's wrong

Imaterllerslie,

I've followed your writing in this thread and have appreciated your imput, but your logic is wrong on this.
Obviously every path has consequences, and the need to evaluate the consequences of our energy decisions is important.
However, all consequences are not the same. Some potential consequences, especially from nuclear energy use aren't even known.
If there were no potential danger inherent in nuclear power plants, over conventional power production facilities, then they wouldn't rerquire the Price Anderson Act to limit their liability in the event of an accident. No insurance company would touch them because they would determine their potential loss was too high.

The Price Anderson Act amounts to an enormous subsidy on behalf of the nuclear industry. Without this subsidy, the industry would be deader than it already is.

Dale

GMcD

Coal into CO2 into trees??

Right, and what is the total cut block size vs new growth/replanted forests? Sorry, can't buy that one while the world, including North America is cutting down trees faster that they can be re-grown to fulfill the suburban stick frame wooden tent nightmare we call our current society. Add new hydro-electric lakes which also eliminate a lot of trees, and the timing can't be fulfilled. How long does it take to get trees to turn into coal? How fast are we cutting all the trees? How fast are we burning the coal? Doesn't add up.

imatellerslie

not familiar with Price Anderson

Dale,

I appreciate your point of view. I stand by the fact that Nuclear Power is quite safe. The probability of anything on the scale of global warming occuring due to nuclear power is essentially zero. Besides, the point of this thread was to discuss alternatives to fossil fuels, since they will inevitably run out or become economically prohibitive at some point. I strongly believe that Nuclear power, coupled with conservation measures and solar/wind etc is the answer.

By the way, I don't believe that you can prove anything by citing a piece of legislation that was written. Is congress omniscient?

Dale Pickard

Price Anderson Act

Thanks for the reply, I think there is a great deal on which we may see eye to eye. The viability of nuclear power is apparently not one of them however. If for no other reason that there is no way anyone could put together a program ambitious enough to actually use nuclear electricity to replace oil and coal. The idea that nuclear power has only been defeated somehow by environmental concerns is a mis-conception. They are top heavy in their own right.

Utilities don't order nukes because it's impossible to make them pay. For what they cost, they only piddle out a little bit of electricity, and of course we lose over 30% of that in the grid, as with all centralized electric power solutions. It's true that they are expensive partially because of the regulatory environment, but that is one that I take you would prefer to retain. Without the containment dome, 3 mi island would have been a different scene. We don't think that nukes are so safe that we should build a bunch of cheap ones do we?

The Price Anderson Act was passed by Congress in 1953 and renewed just last year.It was part of the atoms for peace" initiative of the Eisenhower admin.

The Act limited the liability of a nuclear power plant or energy company in the event of an accident. Prior to the passage of the act, nuclear power was dead in the water. There was not an insurance company in the world that would touch it.

Now we don't know how bad an accident might be, but we know that nuclear accidents could take as long or longer to clean up than it may take to reverse the results of global warming, for example. Unforgiving kind of mistakes.

So my question to you is, If nukes are as safe as you believe and the consequences of an accident "manageable", then why don't the insurance companies agree?

Do you think that energy technolgies should compete in a fair competitive enconomic enviroment, (level playing field) or do you think that some technologies should be favored and subsidized to make them more competitive as is the case with nuclear power?

Dale

Dale Pickard

A rhetorical question

What moral authority does the only country to have ever used a nuclear weapon in warfare have, to assert an argument that seeks to prevent the acquisition of nuclear technolgy by selected others? Especially when that country just invaded and occupied a country for such weapons that turned out not to exist.

We have good reason to suspect that the Iranians are afraid of us. After all, we supplied the chemical weapons that Saddam used against the Iranians in the Iran/Iraq war. There's that famous photo of Rumfeld shaking Saddam's hand.

Dale

imatellerslie

your questions

Dale,

You posed two questions to me. Here are my responses.

"If nukes are as safe as you believe and the consequences of an accident "manageable", then why don't the insurance companies agree?"

First, I don't know that insurance companies are so averse to nuclear power today. Insurance companies like to assess risk based on history, so they probably were very unlikely to underwrite a nuclear power plant prior to their having any operating history. I think today, with the long, safe history that has been established, there may be no need for the legislation you mentioned. I still believe that we should discuss the merits of nuclear power on a technical basis, rather than arguing based on what congress has done, or on what the insurance industry thinks.

"Do you think that energy technolgies should compete in a fair competitive enconomic enviroment, (level playing field) or do you think that some technologies should be favored and subsidized to make them more competitive as is the case with nuclear power?"

I believe that it is reasonable for government to play a role in encouraging the development of energy alternatives. If government doesn't do it, and we allow market forces alone to drive technological development, we stand to experience a pretty painful transition. It is not unreasonable for government to act in the interest of the people.

For example, do you believe that the average fuel economy or emissions of automobiles would be what they are today without government requirements (CAFE)? I think that if we force alternative energy to develop without some prompting, we're going to be in trouble when oil prices ramp up.

I think that in reality, if people weren't unreasonably afraid of nuclear power due to lack of knowledge, then we'd see a lot more nuclear power plants built. I believe that it would be less expensive to build nuclear plants, with the same safety margin. The utilities have been loath to build nuclear plants because of the Shoreham debacle. A nuclear plant built and tested, but never allowed to generate a single watt of commercial power, all because of politics and public fear. That was a huge waste of resources, and one the utilities are afraid to repeat.

jeff_51

lets get a couple of thing straight

was'nt going to weigh in on this one but.
the us of a replants more acres of trees every year tahn it cuts down and has for over thirty years, Yes we import alot of wood from Canada, but don't really import all that much from S America or Asia. Most of that goes to Europe and asia. Secondly, the reason we don't build nuc plants is because the so called enviromentalists and there political allies along with the major media outlets have decided that that isn't a good thing for us, course they don't like anything else either. I guess some think we should go back to horses, but then the peta people would have a fit..How come when I was in school in the early 70's we were entering a new ice age, but now we have to worry about global warming. Do ya think maybe it just might be a normal cycle????? (kind of like a heat curve that goes up and down?????) Anybody out there ever hear of the ice age???? Haven't we been in a warming cycle since than???? How come the Vikings were growing wheat in Greenland 1200 yrs ago, but can't today 'cause it's too cold???? If oil is a limited resource created out of dead dinosours how come we have been pumping oil out of shallow wells in and around Oil City PA since just after the civil war????? How come we have more proven oil reserves now than ever before???? How come we aren't out of oil yet??? they told us thirty five years ago we would be out by now. HOw come oil is naturally flowing out of the bottom of the gulf of mexico which is much shallower than many of the wells we are pumping out of??? Seems to me this old earth is fearfully and wonderously made. Might just be more to all of this than some are willing to perceive.

Dale Pickard

Thanks

for a cogent reply.

I understand the argument that nuclear power does not present the same difficulties as does the continued use of fossil fuels, especially with respect the affects on the atmosphere. I appreciate that, apparently as a technical person, (nuclear engineer?), you don't indulge in the selective endorsement or denial of science, as is popular today.

However, it's unreal to suggest that everyone's concerns over safety of nukes is simply due to some lack of familiarity. As I said, the PA Act was, necessarily renewed last year. Despite what you say, the nuke industry would be dead without it. The point is that the insurance industry is evaluating the pay off’s in the event of an accident. The potential problems in the event of a single event are enormous. Insuring these plants is a game you can only afford to lose once. TMI was a minor accident and it exceeded minimum liabilities several fold.

If you look at the load that you are trying to supply, especially with respect to fossil fuels and start siting gigawatt nukes around the country, you realize quickly that there is no number of nukes that really compensate for fossil fuels.

You also realize that you are taking other fuel distribution systems, like as pipelines and oil distribution and trying to replace it with centralized electrical distribution.....bad idea.

That gas and oil can be burned at 90% + efficiencies on site, where the nukes are going to have to be over built as much 35% to account for line losses. So your gigawatt nuke is really only 6.5 megawatts delivered. And of course, you have to build, maintain and protect that much more powerline...I really don’t think that it’s realistic for any centralized electric power source to replace fossil fuels, even at today’s use, much less tomorrow.

One of the things that I think that you as a technical person might have to come to grips with is the human element. To be a successful energy source, people have to be comfortable with it. If nothing else, to borrow from the industrial design metaphor, it wants to be user friendly. We may not like it but lack of acceptance has a major impact on the utility. It’s a lot easier for them to give away compact fluorescent lights than it is to argue or brainwash their customers into believing what they want them to believe.

The same thing is true for potential accidents caused by politics or terrorism or regulation or lack of regulation or acceptance or failure to accept as opposed to accidents caused by technical error. Again the potential in the event of such an event is very high. It doesn’t matter that it happens for a “bad” reason. Tell it to software engineers who don’t understand why people can learn to run their programs. They’ll get a good chuckle out it.

Do you really want to see a plethora of concrete containment domes and power lines, marching across the landscape? Enough to replace fossil fuels? Big wind farms suffer similar economic constraints and performance constraints. No free lunch you know. It’s all we really know about this game for sure. Sooner or later it’s; Game Over.

Dale

Dale Pickard

Your're a good guy

Tony

I appreciate your grasp on technical reality. It's like the solar freaks that just don't get the real limitations on their dreams of a free lunch, served by Mother Nature no less. It's one thing to promote the things in which you believe, it's another thing to practically and economically pull them off. Those of us who've been there know.

Dale

eleft_4

Dale,



Please point out your point here :>"Those of us who've been there know".

al

imatellerslie

several points

Dale,

Let me briefly address several points you made. First, I'm not advocating the wholesale replacement of fossil fuel with nuclear power as you describe. I don't think it will be necessary to build nuclear power plants with the capacity of current fossil fuel devices. I believe we must work parallel paths. For example, I'm coupling a geothermal heat pump with the old cast iron radiators in my house, and supplementing the radiation with in floor radiant in several areas. (I'm going to need some thermofin) The amount of energy coming across my power line to run that geothermal heat pump will be about 1/4 the energy i'd burn in oil.

Like you, I believe that people should be comfortable with the energy options we choose. That's why education is important. I think people are in general uncomfortable with change. I also believe people are generally afraid of that which they do not understand. Should that stop progress? In my opinion, absolutely not.

As far as the aesthetics of power plants, I'd much rather look at containment domes than smokestacks. I believe that the infrastructure could be built in a way that won't blight the landscape, as you describe.

Cheers,
Russ Felts

leo g_13

Could the nuclear plants

not be built underground? Just quick thoughts, lots of abandoned mine shafts. Containment in case of accident (after all, when the radiation threat was realized with above ground testing, it got moved below surface). Smaller plants sprinkled closer to the need, "out of sight, out of public mind". Transmission lines should all be buried where possible in my opinion. Etc., etc. .....

Leo G

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Tony Conner_2

It's The...

... "Nuclear Liabilities Act" here. Homeowner's insurance policy coverage specificially excludes any kind of nuclear event, or radiation contamination, from any source, by any means.

The big fossil fired plant boilers will run at about 85% eff. Overall plant eff will run in the low 30's. The vast bulk of these losses are directly related to the steam condensers on the exhaust ends of the turbines. There's a huge amount of low-grade heat carried out with all of that water. However, without condensers, eff drops WAY off.

Dale Pickard

Sorry to be vague

I've been doing this work too long I guess. I had my nose rubbed in energy economics a long time ago and now I take it out on everyone else.
Tony has obviously been around the block and has a grasp of the difficult technical challenges that lie in any of these paths.
I am a very strong advocate of solar and conservation, but I understand and am frustrated by my knowledge of how difficult it really is.
There are time that it would be nice to go back to being a true believer in something, nukes, solar, squirrels on treadmills...

Dale

eleft_4

Thanks,

I'm not nosey, I just want to know.

al

Tony_8

CO2 into wood ???

Must be some new kind of cogen plant. )

Tony_8

another logical post

That reminds me, the largest hole in the ozone is over Antartica. Funny how that hole grows and shrinks, dependent upon eruption of a volcano that has a high level of chlorine gas in it's plume.

I'm not advocating waste of fuel, I just think calmer heads should prevail. As the price of fuel goes up, people will care more. Until then, there's really nothing you can say that will spur the masses into action.

Every time I hear another doom and gloom scare story about the world going dark or flooding, I wonder if Chicken Little is still around

I have relatives still working in the oil production business and they're opening up new wells all the time as well as recovering abandoned ones.

Tony Conner

\"If...

...present trends continue..." Present trends NEVER continue. If they did, everyone on the planet would be an Elvis impersonator by now.

I remember seeing a documentary about 25 years ago, that claimed that the pollution levels were so bad on Taiwan, that the island would be uninhabitable within 10 years. As far as I can tell, it's still inhabited, and doing just fine.

However, there are always wild cards. The rapid industrialization of China & India would fit into that catagory. This potentially changes many things. These countries are, and will continue, sucking up resources & material like, well... we do. And their populations are HUGE. I'd guess within about 10 years, these countries will have economically muscled-up nicely, and will be heavy hitters at least in Asia, if not world wide. It's been the same throughout history - the big dogs eat first.

Tony Conner

\"Been Around The Block\"

More like I've been hog-tied, leashed to the bumper and dragged around the block. I've got scars, man

I read-up on windmill power a few years ago. Never actually spend any money, except on a few books, and some reading time. I was pretty pumped (no pun intended), initially, then, the more I read, the more I figured out, that unless you live in a rural, not much more than subsistance level agricultural setting, you'll need about 5 million of these things in your backyard, and even then, if the wind ain't blowing about 30 miles an hour, you're STILL out of luck. And don't get me started about the installed cost.

I like the rustic look of the old windmill skeletons that are all over the farm fields around here. I very much DO NOT like the look of the new more efficient giant space-alien things that cover coastline hillsides. I think that they're possibly some of the most ugly things I've ever seen. I'd really rather see a smokestack.

archibald tuttle

great line tony-thanks dale, co2 to trees

To think, I'm Alfred E. Neuman when I could have been elvis.

Which reminds me, I forgot to mention when comparisons were made of the safety of the space shuttle and nuclear plants that there never was a proper assumption that the space shuttle was safe. The prize winning recently deceased physicist and philosopher Richard Feynman who was on commission looking into the failure that killed the first teacher in space pointed out the fallacy that imbued NASA's thinking regarding the safety of the shuttle.

They had known for some time that the soild fuel boosters were experiencing damage to the seals between their sections. But because the seals had only melted halfway through they considered that they still had a significant safety margin and started rating this burnthrough as a safety factor each flight and they would talk about the percentage of relibability they still had. But the original design had been for no burnthrough. So any burnthrough at all, even of only part of the gasket should have been viewed as beyond safety design limits.

Now I am not saying the such creative moving safety marks goalpost would never occur in the nuclear industry but it was redundancies that kept 3 mile island from being a real disaster.

Dale, it appears we have fundamentally divergent views along the glass half empty, glass half full line. There is plenty of petty, dirty nonsense to this business of humanity but it remains transcendent in my mind. When I go out in the wild I look for oil wells and my wife looks for birds and we find them in the same place. Go anywhere that the enviromentalists tell you is the corporate sponsored end of life as we know it and you'll find an abundance of wildlife and a testament to mans enduring creativity. Love Canal to Prudhoe Bay. I'm just bullish on humanity.

Not that I don't believe we have an impact on this orb or that I'm hung up on some kind of genesistic dominion paradigm as its excuse. I'm just bullish on mankind despite its warts.

I interpret the coal to trees post as a clever statement of CO2 fetilization. Burn coal, more CO2 trees grow faster and sequester more CO2. The post never said anything about an instantaneous industrial process for converting coal into trees. This is one of the mechanisms that tends to restrict CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. There is no absolute equilibrium of design and there are mechanisms believed to reinforce or feedback in atmospheric CO2 although right now there is less additional CO2 showing up in the atmosphere than man is supposed to be producing so the equilbirium favoring mechanisms are outweighing the feedback mechanisms.

That is no lgoical argument it will always be that way but a little contemplated ditty regarding the current environmental CO2 concentrations. Keep fertilizing the trees.

bTW we grow way more tree than we cut. The environmentalists long ago conceded that and their argument now is the what we're putting back isn't as good as what we took. Anyone who lives in the NOrtheast which was down to less than 15% forest knows that forest is the default state and it is taking over again. Crunch all you want, we'll make more.

Brian

Dale Pickard

Riddle me this?

Thanks for the dialog Brian. You are obviously "quite bright" and I don't say that "prophylactically".

It's good for me because it's very hard for me to understand your experience. I am curious what your background is?

I'll write more later but leave you with this question?
If the optimist perceives the glass is half full, and the pessimist perceives the glass is half empty, what does the realist perceive?

Dale

Hint: the realist is a scientist.

GMcD

Facts

Lots of opinion here, but lets look at the facts:

CO2 in the atmosphere:

http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/gallery/annual_meeting_2004_tans

North America deforestation vs replanting:

http://oregonstate.edu/~muirp/fortrends.htm

http://forests.org/archive/canada/repclnot.htm

http://www.cec.org/soe/

The rate at which CO2 is going into the atmosphere is decreasing, but the actual amout of CO2 going into the atmosphere is still increasing, period.

North America is considered "stabilized" in terms of deforestation vs replanting, but how do you compare the monocultures of smaller replanted trees vs the old growth and mixed forests and their rates of CO2 absorbtion? Most of the scientific data indicates that the actual "volume" of trees is still decreasing at a fairly good rate.

Me, I'm still on the fence as to whether the CO2 in the atmosphere and climate change is being accelerated by burning fossil fuel. There are a lot of other large scale sources of environmental greenhouse gas emitters that contribute as well. I think the point that we have to keep in mind is that fossil fuels - coal, oil, natural gas - are all a finite resource and they will run out. Maybe sooner than later, maybe later, but they will still run out.

Consider just the air pollution from burning fossil fuels. That is a known fact. Take a look around on a clear day and see the brown smudge surrounding any city. Do I want to breath flue gases? I don't think anyone else wants to either. But the atmosphere can only hold so much crap.

Tony Conner_2

I'm Very...

...wary of studies and statistics. The first thing I look for is who commissioned/published any information. It's like the term "efficiency" when used for boilers. Not everyone is on the same page for this defintion, which means there are differences in "boiler efficiency", "AFUE efficiency" and "combustion efficiency".

Everyone who is interested or concerned about any given issue, should really try to gather information from a variety of sources, and think for themselves. To imagine that your government (at any level, of any party stripe), or any given corporation or interest group is supplying you with balanced information is, well, naive. Do any of these outfits have YOUR best interest at heart? Maybe. I wouldn't count on it, though.

Remember - figures don't lie, but liars can figure.