Energy

I think I am quite well informed, as I said I do value your opinion but I do not consider your opinion the end all and for good reason (from my perspective)...

I consider myself fortunate to know you.

Actually there are microbes that eat sand also and they eat solid rock too.

Caves were once thought to "erroneously" be caused by water and now they are known to also have been caused by rock eating microbes..

Even the Grand Canyon was created by microbes and not just a meandering stream...

I think the disheveled face of the moon that is directed toward earth is full of microbes too that have migrated from the earth. Just a theory of mine.

Since you're interested in microbes, here is some cool info.
All the bacteria in the world weighs more than the mass of all other species inhabiting earth.
50-60% of fecal matter is composed of bacteria.
Bacteria composes of around 10% of dry weight in an average human body.

Anyway there are some restrictions you should be aware of when thinking that biofuel created by these critters will solve our energy problem.
Genetic engineering to enhance the bacteria's output is expensive and the first phase. Then we have to take into account the cost of the facilities to grow the bacteria, as I've mentioned before. For example, specialized cyanobacteria must be fed sunlight and CO2 constantly for it to maintain a constant output in its biofuel production. Open ponds would be the cheapest, as plastic coverings can be expensive over large surface areas, but then competition comes into play, since these bacteria would be weaker than bacteria in the wild, it would be difficult to keep wild bacteria from invading the pond and overpopulating the residents. Then when we have got that established there is another expense and that is controlling the evolution of these bacteria. These “living factories” also mean they will grow, evolve and change, sometimes in unexpected ways. It will be up to scientists and engineers to figure out how to either control or use these changes in future trials.

I think you are well informed on the current literature of environmental zealots who advance ideas which, if fully implemented, would cause a great deal of human suffering while delivering benefits that are marginal and uncertain at best. Unfortunately, on these and many other issues, the truth is usually much more complex than the zealots, who presume that they alone know what is really good for the rest of us, understand or believe. In the areas of your interest, they typically ignore and distort the real economic cost of their proposals; the often adverse side effects to them; and their effectiveness in delivering what they promise. That shouldn't surprise you, in that zealots of every stripe usually do these things.

To really give meaning to your intertests in these areas. you need to develop the internal ability to see through the propaganda of all the contending forces in such debates. In this area it requires accurate information on the known statistical safety record of industrial processes; the capital and operating cost data for various energy sources, along with their recent production shares in our power market. In the case of electrical energy generation you need to understand the inherent limitations on the capacity of various process to deliver rated power 24-7, and the self-serving way comparative statistics are often presented. All of this is readily available on the OSHA, Department of Energy, and other web sites. Beyond that you need to improve your basic understanding of how these systems work. That will require some study of a range of topics including basic Thermodynamics; the conversion losses involved in heat engines that convert thermal energy to mechanical (a gas fired powerplant or an automobile engine); or mecnanical energy to electric (a generator - or the reverse in a motor); the limitations of batteries and the very different large scale energy storage devices (which basically involve at least two energy conversions - one on the way in and the other on the way out) and the large losses attendant to each of them ..... and a few other topics. This information is also readily available if you will take the trouble to find it.

With respect to predictions of looming global environmental disasters, you should reflect on a few facts. The earth's climate has never been stable, it has, instead experienced continuing changes on many time scales whose period spans centuiries, millenia and epochs. Known ones have included repeated ice ages, warming and cooling. hundreds of shifts in the polarity of the magnetic field, continental-scale shifts of monsoon winds that have turned forests into deserts and back, and more. None of this stuff is really predictable because of both the complexity of the problem and its perverse sensitivity to initial conditions - a thing called chaos. That's why after 20 iterations of Moore's law regarding computing power we still can't accurately forecast the weather more than five or so days in advance.

I also suggest you learn to be very sceptical of simplistic conspiracy theories. Human nature tends to be more or less the same on both sides of political and policy debates of all kinds. The greed of operators of coal plants or petroleum exploration or delivery companies, really isn't much different from the greed of the folks who build wind turbines or solar generating facilities (somethines they are the same people). Al Gore has done very well exploiting exonomic opportunities most of which were financed by federal subsidies and guaranteed loans or grants - and so far the public has gotten damn little from it.

Finally I recommend that you reflect a bit on the appetite of humans for power over others. A great deal of misery has been inflicted on humanity by people who were sincerely sure that they alone knew what was really good for everyone else. When one believes he alone posesses the secret to human welfare and happiness, it is easy to rationalize killing a few million or so to get there. The 20th century provided us with several examples of this, and that feature oif human history has not ended. This behavior operates on scales large and small. (Think of Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard " ... "What Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood ...."



That was unexpected and a bit hard to swallow. However I appreciate it. I'm no more special than anyone else. What we get out of life's experiences (i. e. whether we are fortunate in them or not) depends largely on what we put in to them ourselves.

Good luck!

Very interesting facts, most of which I did not know. Thanks Val for posting...

Again when expense is mentioned I can only think of the current mess that dirty fuels have left the state of the climate in and say what is more expensive?

Cheap fuels that are dirty or expensive fuels (that is if they actually are more expensive in the long run) that are clean?

I think the latter is cheaper in the long run. Even it if is not cheaper it is maintainable. Once we exhaust these fuels that have a limited supply we will have to move onto the same energy sources that have been resisted for so long.

By that time it may be too late to turn back the clock on the earth's climate... At that stage perhaps no amount of money and human ingenuity will be able to undo the damage done by these "cheap" fuels...

So my question from the very start is, are they really that cheap when we calculate the scope of their impact on the planet long term?

Imagine a device that has bacteria in it and the bacteria live off CO2 from the air and create electricity... You can plug cell phones and laptops into the device. What could be more ideal? The bacteria replicate and die at the precise same rate and regulate themselves...

Also it would only take a patch of Chernobyl bacteria's DNA to (or some other extreme bacteria) make a weaker bacteria more hearty.

I really don't think that the process of genetic manipulation is that expensive considering it is being done with nearly every food product sold today by Monsanto and other companies...

A bacteria that creates electricity while consuming CO2 would easily pay for itself in only a few years of actual application...

Neither am I a geneticist and to an actual geneticist my reasoning may seem naive... Yet, perhaps these ideas are not so far fetched.

There are also viruses, molds, fungus and other rudimentary forms of life that can be manipulated to aid and enhance the processes.

We have definitely entered a microbial era in the quest to find new, safe and clean energy sources.

George when you spew out your Fox News talking points about how the climate has naturally fluctuated for millions of years take this into consideration.

And consider the source NASA, not the Huffington Post...

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/



Please go and argue your right wing talking points to the scientists at NASA okay?

Excellent idea. That, or run my car on some sort of self contained cold fusion device.

Harry Reid Tells Republicans No Deal Unless Big Oil Subsidies are Eliminated
http://www.politicususa.com/harry-reid-tells-republicans-deal-big-oil-subsidies-eliminated.html

Once again you don't understand what you are writing about and you resort to girlish " take that " games when your errors have been demonstrated.

The geologic time scale is millions or billions of years, not hundreds of thousands. What I wrote is exactly correct.

The most telling conclusion from the graph you presented is just how insensitive climate is relatively larger excursion in CO2 concentration this century. The known warming experienced so far in the last century is 0.5 degrees Celsius.

You are, once again adept at finding excerpts on the web that you believe make a point relative to the prejudices you acquire from your reading. However, you still don't understand the information or the concepts you are dealing with.

Merely a braying ass.

What did you do go and vote all my **** down George?

Girly?

NASA thinks your a ******* retard...

George, humans have only been intelligent enough to destroy this earth by our own pollution and technology for about a hundred years...

We are talking about HUMAN POLLUTION!

What a dingbat...

A shall we go back million years to look for the impact of automobiles on our climate? Were humans driving automobiles a million years ago?

At one time the earth was covered in molten lava, and your feeble minded point is?

Odd coincidence cars give off CO2 and this is what is elevated... Elevated CO2 levels coinciding directly with the advent of motor vehicles in the last 50 YEARS!!!!!

No, I don't do that for anyone.

No, I think I wrote "girlish" , in the sense of petulance and excessive reactions to criticism. The description is accurate and you have demonstrated it here again.

You don't know what NASA thinks.

It is merely unfortunate that you refuse to educate yourself about realities, and instead continue on a simgle minded obsession about the evils of human activity and an imagined conspiracy by "the rich" to destroy the planet. You also appear to be oblivious to the rather obvious fact of your ignorance of the science behind the issues about which you pontificate so assiduously aand the obviously borrowed ideas which you so mindlessly repeat here ad nauseum.

Your arguments don't stand up George...

And yes I do know what NASA thinks, I read their page on EVIDENCE of climate change.

I agree with them and you come off with some stupid tangent that has no basis in the facts they presented.

Year- Carbon Emissions
2009 - 9.28 billion metric tonnes per year
2008- 9.45 billion of metric tonnes per year
2007- 9.31 billion metric tonnes per year
2006- 9.22 billion metric tonnes per year


George that is BILLIONS of metric TONS of carbon emissions..

I wonder where the carbon is coming from?
Very simple cause and effect, and you call yourself a scientist...

perp motion alert

No one is arguing with the billions of tons of CO2 emitted each year by the aerobic decay and combustion of plant matter and carbon fuels, as well as that added by respirating animal life. I suppose we could also count the billions of tons of CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere by living plants and the oceans and the more billions of tons sequestered in the oceans annually by the formation of limestone, and, finally, the relatively very small net amount added to the atomsphere. We should also take note of the very small effect it has had so far on the temperature of the earth.

What you don't consider in your childish (and I should add useless) obsessions is the simple fact that six billion or so human beings depend on fossil fueld for their food and shelter ... their lives. This too is a serious issue and one of far more proximate urgency than the uninformed obsessions that so preoccupy you. If you were constructively and seriously concerned about all this you would educate yourself on the basic science involved and possibly even take some constructive action. Unfortunately you don't do any of that.

As it is, you have demonstrated here repeatedly that you don't know how various heat engines and energy systems work; you don't know the losses (to heat) attendant to them; don't know or understand basic thermodynamics; and, as your last post makes clear, you don't know or understasnd the earth's carbon cycle.. You appear to have no interest in or understanding of the economics of variuous energy alternatives, even in areas in which these factors are overwhelmingly dominant.

In short you don't know jack **** about the stuff you post here. You could easily be replaced by a bot that merely forwarded bits from various AGW advocacy sites.

Good try George these numbers I quoted are the CO2 added to our atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels ALONE...

They do not take in to consideration the natural process of plants and farting cows.

Global CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Burning Rise into High-Risk Zone
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-co2-emissions-from

Excerpt:

The world's carbon dioxide output hit a new record high last year and is poised to break that record in 2012, according to a new study.

Global CO2 emissions grew 3 percent last year, and scientists with the Global Carbon Project estimate they will grow another 2.6 percent this year, to an estimated 35.6 billion metric tons. They expect the amount of CO2 emitted this year by burning fossil fuels to grow to 58 percent above the 1990 emissions level.

CO2 emissions grew sharply this year in China, by 9.9 percent, and in India, which recorded a 7.5 percent gain. Emissions from the United States fell by 1.8 percent, and from the European Union by 2.8 percent.

But global CO2 emissions are still on track to meet or exceed the most extreme emissions scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2007 report, and by the scenarios the panel will use in the report it will release next year, scientists with the Global Carbon Project said.

Comment:
Please read on...

You missed the point once again, and again because of your ignorance of the science behind the numbers. CO2 is continuously added to the atmosphere and removed from it by naturally occurring processes. Not every ton of CO2 added to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels remains in the atmosphers. The vast majority of it is removed by the action of growing green plants and through the formation of carbonic acid in the oceans (which is subsequently turned into calciuum carbonate (=limestone) in the ocean. Moreover the removal processes are accelerated by increases in the addition rates. There is indeed a net increase in atmospheric CO2, but it is less than the numbers you cited.

There is lots of AGW propaganda out there, some on government web sites. You don't have the knowledge, the inclination or perhaps even the intelligence to recognize it - as you have amply demonstrated.

George do you know off hand what in America creates the most oxygen?

If you can name this I will, well, let's say, think about things...

Plant life - everywhere

More accurately, it is trees...



http://quercus.igpp.ucla.edu/teaching/papers_to_read/fan_sci_99_comments.pdf

http://www.camelclimatechange.org/articles/view/169930/?topic=65884