[paraclete]

Not wishing to be a wet blanket or a chicken little but have you considered the facts?

Humans could be among the victims of sixth 'mass extinction', scientists warn - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

It seems we are busily engineering our own demise, now climate change experts have been telling us this for decades for a different reason, they think we are capable of changing things, like human nature, however the reality is we are asleep, we have no idea what is happening around us, it is called ELE, and for the uninitiated that is extinction level event, this one won't be an asteroid but it might, it will be neglect

1km asteroid Icarus getting CLOSER to Earth and a hit could ravage a continent | Nature | News | Daily Express

[excon]

Hello Clete:

There IS a tipping point where we can't go back... I think we're there. Certainly, I can understand our push for fossil fuels.. I like to be warm too. But, ONCE it has been determined that it isn't good for us, you'd THINK we'd come up with an alternative plan... But, noooo... Some of us would rather forge blindly ahead. I dunno why.

excon

[talaniman]

Hello Clete, I think you still have time to put another shrimp on the barby... and enjoy it. You may as well while you can!

[paraclete]

Tal I would never waste a prawn by putting in on a barbie, yes I'm known to enjoy the odd prawn washed down with a coldie.

I am a believer that we are beyond the tipping point and our attempts to wind back climate change are futile and the only thing we damage by taking advantage of the resources we have is us and the only people we will damage by playing King Canute to climate change is us. Whatever set in motion the warming 10,000 years ago is still in action, we have not yet seen the climax

We have the ability to be carbon free right now but we won't do it because the cure might be worse than the complaint

[tomder55]

Hello Clete:

There IS a tipping point where we can't go back... I think we're there. Certainly, I can understand our push for fossil fuels.. I like to be warm too. But, ONCE it has been determined that it isn't good for us, you'd THINK we'd come up with an alternative plan... But, noooo... Some of us would rather forge blindly ahead. I dunno why.

excon

no problem . Just tell us what source we can implement today ,right now, that can replace carbon based fuels for the needs of a growing worldwide 21st century economy. I can think of one ,but it looks like nuclear power has fallen out of favor lately .

[tomder55]

Whatever set in motion the warming 10,000 years ago is still in action, we have not yet seen the climax

umm perhaps the ice age was the catastrophic event that we are still recovering from.

We have the ability to be carbon free right now but we won't do it because the cure might be worse than the complaint

Yes ,every other energy source carries their own risks . Every other source that you know of is supplementary at best ;and to produce them puts other stress on the ecology . Every source you can think of is the result of taking from the earth . You think carbon based is a dwindling source ? Your alternatives are the product of rare earth materials . The truth is that all energy sources impact the natural environment in some way, and life is full of tradeoffs. The windmills that are a blight on the landscape are the product of 8,000 different components . The magnets alone are produced using neodymium and dysprosium, rare earth minerals mined almost exclusively in China. Just one 2 megawatt wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium. Your typical natural gas power plant generates 100 MW . You do the math. Is there even that much neodymium and dysprosium in the ground to mine ? They call it rare earth minerals for a reason.
The same is true for solar . Solar panels need tellurium, which makes up 0.0000001 percent of the earth's crust ;3 x rarer than gold . Other rare earths ,Terbium and europium, are used in CFL light bulbs. Even your cell phone uses 60 different elements .
Do you know how these metals are extracted from mines ? Most people don't and they'd be shocked to find out the level of pollution . They basically strip mine. Then they grind the rocks to dust . Then they throw it into water and blow bubbles into the water . That causes 65% of the rare earths to rise to the top where it's extracted . The rest of the slurry remains in a toxic pool seeping into the ground water .

[excon]

Hello tom:

Maybe IF we had started the Manhattan style project regarding NEW energy sources WHEN I first mentioned it here, on these pages, we'd have it by now. I still think we can get fusion to work. But, NOT if we dabble around the edges.

excon

[paraclete]

Dabble around the edges? What is it you actually think we have been doing? If fusion exists it is far from our existing technology and considering it requires a very strong magnetic force and much energy to get started I have the sense that it has the same drawbacks as any of our technologies. We are going to have to bite the bullet and realise that if we existed for millennia as a small population we are going to have to go back to that state if our society is to be sustainable. There is no grand utopia, vast cities it just isn't going to happen and if you observe the advanced societies they begin to get smaller

[talaniman]

Big oil ain't gonna to let you mess with their money without a fight. And they don't care about the stuff they have already polluted, and will pollute some more.

While every economy in the world depends on that nasty stuff don't expect a lot of quick changes to happen, but over time big oil's days are numbered. It's just a BIG number right now. That's a problem but only a part of it.

A third of world's major aquifers are threatened

[tomder55]

Big oil ain't gonna to let you mess with their money without a fight. And they don't care about the stuff they have already polluted, and will pollute some more.

While every economy in the world depends on that nasty stuff don't expect a lot of quick changes to happen, but over time big oil's days are numbered. It's just a BIG number right now. That's a problem but only a part of it.

A third of world's major aquifers are threatened

psst . here's a secret for you . "big oil " is actually "energy companies" . They spend big $$$ on R&D on those alternatives you support. Why ? Because if there is a profit to be made on them ;the energy companies want in. BP said it stood for "Beyond Petroleum" .Chevron's had ads saying "It's time oil companies get behind the development of renewable energy".Chevron ,Exxon Mobil , Shell and BP all invest in biofuels . They would've even invested more if there was money to be made in return. However ,that is not the case.

[tomder55]

Hello tom:

Maybe IF we had started the Manhattan style project regarding NEW energy sources WHEN I first mentioned it here, on these pages, we'd have it by now. I still think we can get fusion to work. But, NOT if we dabble around the edges.

excon

The quest for the Holy Grail . Since the dawn of the nuclear age fusion power has been the dream. The ultimate man made solar power.

You will be happy to know that there is a multinational project in France that includes the EU ,US ,China ,India ,Japan, Russia, and S Korea that is dedicated to create a fusion reactor in a controlled environment with the goal of converting plasma physics into an electricity producing power plant.(Canada was in it but withdrew) The name of the project is ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) .T

This was the brain child of Reagan and Gorbachev in 1985 . As of this date they don't expect operations to begin before 2027 . Maybe not quite the speed of the Manhattan Project ,but I suspect the best that the best minds in the field could do.

As of right now the construction costs alone have ballooned to over $14 billion ,3 times the original figure. (Typical government at work).It remains to be seen if the tokamak design can produce more energy than it consumes .That of course has been the challenge of fusion power concept all along.

Bottom line is realistically and optimistically we are looking at another generation for this to begin to be practical. In the meantime we still have a world wide economy to fuel.
We could take a Malthusian reductionist attitude like Clete ,maybe go back to foraging for berries and living in caves or grass huts . But I don't think that humans want that .

[talaniman]

Yeah I know, no profit in making massive investments into infrastructure that support the changes that are needed to transition us from fossil to renewables.

Transition from Non-Renewable Energy to Sustainable Energy, to Future Prospects of Oil Companies

... The big question is this: Are oil companies acknowledging this issue and, if so, how do they plan to cope with a shift in fuel use?Most petroleum companies publicly acknowledge the environmental damage that their products create. Environmental issues have become more important to the average citizen in the last few decades, so oil companies feel the pressure to modify their products accordingly. But it is apparent that these companies have received less pressure on the subject of future energy. An in-depth search of their web sites reveals that only a few are willing to admit that the US petroleum supply will soon run out that we will be dependent on foreign countries as the reserves of the ever-more-scarce resource dwindle.

To this, Obstacles to use of Sustainable Energy, but that's what we get when big oil(Energy to you Tom) bankrolls opposition instead of innovation, in the name of protecting, and proliferating PROFIT.

Not least of which are government subsidies (taxpayer money). In addition http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/tomor..._from_ssrn.pdf

Development of clean coal technologies that reduce carbon emissions per unit of coal burning, could help in buying more time for the transition to a cleaner renewable resource. The paper suggests that current research and development into energy alternatives is miniscule compared to the revenue that could be generated from even moderate carbon taxes and one policy option may be to channel part of an energy tax into research and development.

TAX!! Did they have the nerve to say... TAX!!

[paraclete]

It matters not Tom and you know it, the days of the electric auto will be here soon, considering the running cost I don't know why it isn't here now, Oh wait we know that big oil restricts innovation, what ever happened to all this vehicles powered by electrolosis? You never hear processes like that discussed these days

[paraclete]

What climate change will do to your loaf of bread

Here is an interesting thought on the problems, including if our bread is not going to be as nutricious what other foods will contribute to the decline?

[tomder55]

It matters not Tom and you know it, the days of the electric auto will be here soon, considering the running cost I don't know why it isn't here now, Oh wait we know that big oil restricts innovation, what ever happened to all this vehicles powered by electrolosis? You never hear processes like that discussed these days

oh brother ; electolosis ? Next you'll tell me about that perpetual motion machine.

[paraclete]

Yes Tom got the plans for one of those but like everything I don't have the time to do the research and scale it up to be useful. I understand you are skeptical and so am I about many things but with an interest in renewable energy, I'm also interested in alternative energy. Electrolosis has been shown to work but research is needed and big oil just gobbles up patients on various things to prevent that research because one day they may be able to exploit it. Here's another for a laugh wireless transmission of electricity. Way back when there was much interest until they realised that it wasn't possible to meter all consumption, of course, we would be able to do it today but how do you identify who supplied the electricity? Sort of doesn't work in the capitalist business model

[tomder55]

Sort of doesn't work in the capitalist business model

But in that central government controlled economy anything is possible . In Italy the trains ran on time and all that . Maybe you'll have your own 'Great Leap Forward " and it's related 45 million deaths . Or the 5 year plan with it's 7 million deaths. It would help you cull that population .... oh wait ;that's right ... you don't want to cull the population of your country . You want it reduced in other countries of color .

[paraclete]

Now Tom how can you say that? this is a nation with finite resources. It cannot grow beyond a certain point without falling back to subsistance level. There are fools who think it could support a vast population in the north, but the reality is it can't. This doesn't have the water of the americas, or asia or europe, our rivers run underground and we grow crops on land your farmers wouldn't even try on. Every now and then the whole thing floods, for months roads are impassable and in recent years you have seen some of the results of that. If we had the great lakes system you have things would be different, but it would take a grand vision to create that. Two centuries ago the Murray-Darling was navigable, today it is lucky it has water in it. Could you imagine your waterways in that state?

You think I want the burden to fall on people of colour, it has to start there because they breed faster than others, that is traditional, but in fact, all nations must limit their population because population is growing faster than the world can cope and if you want reduction in carbon it is the only way. The alternative is a massive war for resources chief among it water and food. Now I have done my part I have only had three children. Let the people of colour demonstrate the same restraint

[talaniman]

Maybe managing resources for effectiveness, and NOT profit would benefit more people, and promote more investments in better ways of doing things.

[tomder55]

and I bet you think that only the government should be making that investment .