No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

For some very strange reason, your comments reminded of this song. Nothing personal, though.

[video=youtube;65AuuFpNFxY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65AuuFpNFxY[/video]

 

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

You're right on this point

I've seen conflicting info on whether warm water is good for reefs but ocean acidification is definitely not good for them.
mainstream article
technical article

Thanks for the link.

I think there are more authoritative figures on the subject.

He would have more credibility if his background wasn't in the industry that has the largest vested interest in debunking climate change, ocean acidification, etc... He can't be considered an objective person on the subjects.

His concentration is in geology yet the subject draws on disciplines from biology, physics and chemistry. He does a good job using his background to argue his point but he misses the whole picture.

I like how he uses facts and articles to support his point and not anecdotal evidence. I tried to look into the paper he cites the most (Pelejero et al., 2005) but it's not freely available on the net so I couldn't really fact check it.

 

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

There's also nothing in his background that qualifies him to be an expert.
-He only has a Bachelors (30 years ago?)
-His concentration is geology, arguably not the best discipline to discuss ocean acidification
-He's not published on the subject
-He doesn't even do research on the subject (aside from probably reading other papers)

Like I said before, He makes logical arguments but I couldn't fact check because all the cited articles are only available for paying members.

My beef is that he says all of global warming and ocean acidification is junk science by finding different conclusions to data found in a handful of published papers. You could do the same with medical journals, find conflicting reports on a variety of subjects. Can you call
cancer research junk science?

You could argue that same for scientists working in the public and academic sectors. A minority argue against thousands of scientists and suddenly global warming and ocean acidification is "debunked"!?!?! I think it's good to have opposing voices but to say it's all a fraud or whatever is disingenuous

 

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

We did. It was called "Star Wars". You did not really think it was against the Russians, did you?

 

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

I am not really against Star Wars, or, to be honest, many Govt. sponsored "technology/science" projects.

This is an area where Govt. funding with long-term implication actually makes sense, imho - some things just do not fair well in the US's quarter to quarter what have you done for me business climate - and the "spend money because we will need it and gain long-term advantages from it" is what makes a country successful long term.

That, btw, is a reason I love the idea of Govt. funded alternative fuel solutions - Not because of the entire climate change stuff (which I do not think we can measure with a high level of confidence at this point) - but because this eliminates dependency and will have long-term advantages we are yet to see because of the knowledge/technology that will be gained.

 

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

That is probably not a bad idea, Fuel Cells strike me as a pretty stupid idea - the need to generate the electricity from raw material on-board is just silly when you think about this country's well developed grid, and many different types of alternative energy sources you will not be able to utilize with fuel cells. It made a lot of sense in the 19th century (when the automobile really started) - with limited grid and bad storage technology - but today?

The future for transportation sources would really look a lot better when utilizing centralized production facilities that are not limited to Hydrogen - but can work with Solar, Wind, Algae and god knows what else they come with (Switchgrass?) - and work on better storage mechanism for this electricity (be it battery technology) or update the infrastructure for battery exchange (instead of gas pumps) - as Shai Agassi's Better Place start-up suggests.

Fuel-Cells remind me of Ethanol. It's looking for the lost penny under the street light - because there is light there. There is no need for raw-material conversion for energy production with the infrastructure we have - it just makes no sense. It's the power of momentum - we always generated the energy from on-board raw material in the past - so let's do it going forward. There is no need for it.

 

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

Distributing the hydrogen will require an infrastructure upgrade as well - so there is very little difference between that and a battery exchange infrastructure upgrade, and there is no need to "create" the energy from raw-on-board material with electric vehicles.

The real problem with fuel-cells is that currently, they are not very efficient, you currently have a 50% energy conversion rate for even low voltage output, with the hydrogen already on-board. When you add the costs of making it available at the pumps - the efficiency drops significantly - even fossil fuel powerplants (which are not the most efficient compared to natural resources (water) and nuclear plants are much more efficient.

In other words - there is really no real advantage for fuel cells compared to strictly electric vehicles when you figure the distribution infrastructure upgrades. Heck, a simple solution like the one offered by the Chevy Volt (electric motors for the drivetrain, with a normal gasoline engine for recharging it on the fly when it goes beyond the grid-charge range) makes a lot more sense. You get a much higher return on investment this way - you can use the current fossil fuel infrastructure with no changes while tapping into the pre-existing grid for 80% of the commute needs of most Americans.

 

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

The Prius (at least now) can not be recharged from the grid and it has a more complicated drivetrain - given that both the electric motor and the gasoline motor can power the wheels.

The Prius, even if many car enthusiasts disdain it - is a brilliant piece of engineering and proved that we can have modern vehicles with alternative fuel delivery. It was (and still is) a great stepping stone and will be remembered as a very important vehicle - but, in a way, it is a little bit like the Mini was in the 60s - it showed us some of the way, but the final solution is different from what it was.

(For the record, the Mini was the first popular small car that used the traverse engine layout in a FWD application - which is the most popular form of modern car, but - now the engine does not sit on top of the transmission as it did in the Mini and the form is much improved by the incorporation of a hatchback to properly utilize the space efficiency that the FWD layout provided).

 

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

Sure, but there are also all electric Fiat Spiders out there...

True.

I am pretty sure other hybrids are designed for aerodynamic as well. Remember that the first generation Prius looked like a normal car, the 2nd generation (the one that was the big seller) looked a lot more like the first generation Honda Insight.

Sure.

Sure. The nice thing about a full electric with a small gas engine like the Volt is that based on the daily commute of most Americans - it would use a lot less gasoline - simply because most people will just recharge it and tap very little into the gasoline use.

 

Re: No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Fi

One can fly commerical and still fly a Lear jet. You know he chartered a flight to Dopenhagen.