cicerone imposter wrote:Clinton did the right thing by not approving Kyoto.
Why? Kyoto looks like a good plan to me.
Kyoto was not good for the US, because it would impose greater restrictions on the US than more poluting countries like China where environment impact by polution is worse. For Kyoto to work, it must be "fair." Kyoto was not fair.
cicerone imposter wrote:Kyoto was not good for the US, because it would impose greater restrictions on the US than more poluting countries like China where environment impact by polution is worse. For Kyoto to work, it must be "fair." Kyoto was not fair.
But I don't see how those restrictions would harm us. We could switch over to nuclear power and sell off our pollution credits to help pay down the national debt.
The US has many laws that outlaw polution, but China has none to little. We can increase our laws to lessen polution more, but it will be at the expense of our economy and world competiveness. That's the reason why Clinton did the right thing to refuse Kyoto as written.
cicerone imposter wrote:We can increase our laws to lessen polution more, but it will be at the expense of our economy and world competiveness.
Not if we build a lot more nuclear power plants.
Here's a article from 2004 that explains it:
Posted 10/20/2004 7:28 PM
Kyoto is unfair to U.S.
By S. Fred Singer
In July 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 for a resolution opposing any international treaty that would damage the economy by restricting energy usage, raising the cost of fuels for transportation, heating and electricity.
This unanimous vote included Sen. John Kerry, and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who are currently advocating just such restrictions. But the resolution was right. A treaty obligating developed nations but not China, India, Brazil and Mexico would produce huge U.S. job losses as industries moved overseas.
However, because of the initiative of then-vice president Al Gore, the U.S. signed just such a treaty, the protocol negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997. But President Clinton never submitted it for Senate ratification. And President Bush has consistently declared Kyoto "fatally flawed."
Neither Bush nor the Senate has pointed out, however, that Kyoto is not only costly and unfair to the U.S., but it is also ineffective in averting a feared global warming. Scientists all agree that at best it would reduce the calculated temperature rise in 2050 by an insignificant one-tenth of a degree.
Russia has been more outspoken. The Russian Academy of Sciences, in a May 2004 report, questioned the reality of substantial future warming, concluding that Kyoto lacks any scientific base. President Vladimir Putin declared Kyoto "scientifically flawed" and intimated that Russia would not ratify it.
Yet, ironically, Russia's parliament will likely ratify it before the year's end, making Kyoto binding on all ratifiers. Why? The reason may be short-term economic gain, as the protocol permits selling Russia's unused emission rights to Europeans anxious to ease the economic penalties of Kyoto's restrictions.
Russia's economic collapse after 1990 nearly halved its emissions ?- and the base year chosen for Kyoto is 1990. This arbitrary choice also favors Germany, which took over a faltering East German economy, and Great Britain, which switched its electric generation from coal to natural gas at about that time. We would lose out, and maybe that's why our economic competitors are so anxious to get us to ratify Kyoto.
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and the author of Hot Talk Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate (Independent Institute, Oakland, 1999).
cicerone imposter wrote:Kyoto is unfair to U.S.
By S. Fred Singer
In July 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 for a resolution opposing any international treaty that would damage the economy by restricting energy usage, raising the cost of fuels for transportation, heating and electricity.
It wouldn't restrict any energy that was derived from nuclear power.
cicerone imposter wrote:Yet, ironically, Russia's parliament will likely ratify it before the year's end, making Kyoto binding on all ratifiers. Why? The reason may be short-term economic gain, as the protocol permits selling Russia's unused emission rights to Europeans anxious to ease the economic penalties of Kyoto's restrictions.
If we switched most of our power generation over to nuclear power, we too would have unused emission rights that we could then sell to other countries.
There's a bigger problem for the US. We represent a very small percentage of the world population, but consume the greatest amount of energy. This problem cannot be solved by just building more nuclear plants. The world still has a big problem disposing of spent rods for nuclear plants.
cicerone imposter wrote:There's a bigger problem for the US. We represent a very small percentage of the world population, but consume the greatest amount of energy.
I don't see how that is a problem.
cicerone imposter wrote:The world still has a big problem disposing of spent rods for nuclear plants.
That's no problem. Just extract all the actinides and use them to fuel a fast neutron reactor.
"I don't see how that is a problem." I will disagree. There is a finite supply of fossil fuels in this world, as we produce more and more vehicles that uses it.
"That's no problem. Just extract all the actinides and use them to fuel a fast neutron reactor."
If what you say is true, why haven't we done so?
cicerone imposter wrote:"I don't see how that is a problem." I will disagree. There is a finite supply of fossil fuels in this world, as we produce more and more vehicles that uses it.
We can use nuclear power to separate hydrogen from seawater, and use hydrogen as fuel.
cicerone imposter wrote:"That's no problem. Just extract all the actinides and use them to fuel a fast neutron reactor."
If what you say is true, why haven't we done so?
Because the anti-nuclear crowd throws a tantrum.
I'm a bit wary of the use of nuclear power. It's a potential terrorist target, the waste is a headache to dispose of, where are you going to get the radioactive materials in the first place and furthermore there's always the risks of accidents and leaks.
Frankly, I'd rather more money be pumped into energy research.
Wolf_ODonnell wrote:I'm a bit wary of the use of nuclear power. It's a potential terrorist target,
That's a problem, but there is no reason why it can't be solved through greater security.
Wolf_ODonnell wrote:the waste is a headache to dispose of,
It wouldn't be that big of a headache if we were willing to reprocess the actinides into fuel for fast-neutron reactors.
Wolf_ODonnell wrote:where are you going to get the radioactive materials in the first place
Uranium mines are a well-established industry.
Wolf_ODonnell wrote:and furthermore there's always the risks of accidents and leaks.
The risks are negligible in a properly-designed reactor.
oralloy seems to have all the answers. Now, if only he can get our government to follow it.
There are at least two problems with your thesis, Oralloy.
First of all, due to the specter of Chernobyl, there is NO politician who will back new Nuclear Plants in the USA.
Secondly, Nuclear Plants, as you may be aware, are used mainly for the production of Electric Power. Our co2 problems come mainly from industrial production outside of electric power generation.
Mortkat wrote:There are at least two problems with your thesis, Oralloy.
First of all, due to the specter of Chernobyl, there is NO politician who will back new Nuclear Plants in the USA.
Take a look at the latest energy bill.
http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=3&catid=1351
Mortkat wrote:Secondly, Nuclear Plants, as you may be aware, are used mainly for the production of Electric Power. Our co2 problems come mainly from industrial production outside of electric power generation.
Use nuclear energy to separate hydrogen from seawater.
Lately, I've been hearing various sources cite new information that suggests that petroleum may not be a byproduct of dead dinosaurs, fossils, and other compressed organic materials, but may be a natural product of the earth itself and thus not so measurably finite as once assumed. Now mind you these are just people I know nothing about who are saying this, so I am not putting this forward as anything other than idle rumors at the moment. But given how many things scientists have had to back down on with revelation of better information, how interesting would it be if this 'new information' is correct and petroleum is a renewable resource? And how would this affect global policy?
Maybe we would work even harder to make it more environmentally friendly along with looking for different energy sources?
On hydrogen, do any of you tech nuts know how the stability and safety of use compares with gasoline? For those of us unschooled in the use of hydrogen, the vision of the Hindenburg erupting in fire is still vivid.
abiotic oil is a myth
and even if it wasnt, how are you going to extract it?
hydrogen is not a source of energy, but a means of transporting it
Foxfyre wrote:Lately, I've been hearing various sources cite new information that suggests that petroleum may not be a byproduct of dead dinosaurs, fossils, and other compressed organic materials, but may be a natural product of the earth itself and thus not so measurably finite as once assumed. Now mind you these are just people I know nothing about who are saying this, so I am not putting this forward as anything other than idle rumors at the moment. But given how many things scientists have had to back down on with revelation of better information, how interesting would it be if this 'new information' is correct and petroleum is a renewable resource? And how would this affect global policy?
I believe the hypothesis is that methane was present in large quantities when the solar system formed, so we have a near unlimited supply of natural gas. But I don't think it applies to heavier hydrocarbons.
The biggest impact potentially will be on the climate. If we run out of hydrocarbons to burn, and burning hydrocarbons causes global warming (as seems likely to be the case), then "running out of fuel" could save our environment.
On the other hand, "an unlimited supply of natural gas" isn't nearly as bad for global warming as it would be if we had "an unlimited supply of coal".
Foxfyre wrote:On hydrogen, do any of you tech nuts know how the stability and safety of use compares with gasoline? For those of us unschooled in the use of hydrogen, the vision of the Hindenburg erupting in fire is still vivid.
The Hindenburg didn't burn because it used hydrogen. It had serious safety problems.
Of course, any time you have a vehicle engulfed in fire, any fuel on that vehicle is likely to contribute to the fire.
