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You know, just because science figures out something that could make our lives better doesn't mean that it will be misused. To automatically refute advances in medicine puts you squarely in the realm of the Luddite. Someone like you was saying that soap is an unhealthy and unholy invention a couple thousand years ago.

Ahem. I don't know about "unholy"; but it seems like at least the use of some soaps IS DECIDEDLY UNHEALTHY.

Sorry. You just walked into that one and shut the door behind yourself.

For the record: I am anything BUT a luddite. But I also have a nose for bad science. And this is the epitome of just that.

You'll notice Hansen carefully avoids talking about the 1930's. The EPA has a heatwave graphic which goes back to the turn of the last century. If Hansen wants to claim it is due to co2 then there must have been one hell of a co2 bubble sitting stationary over the US for most of the 1930's. http://epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/weather-climate/heat-waves.html

What part of "warmest year on record" is unclear to you?

What part of the temperature during earlier eras where we weren't on top of the food chain is relevant?

Ahh. So we "weren't on top of the food chain" in the 1930s, when the heat wave index was higher than it is now?

Yes, natural gas as it is currently processed is greenhouse neutral and not a benefit as is currently supposed by just examining the combustion step.

However a lot of the current technology is just flat out sloppy and definitely could be improved pretty easily. Some efforts are in progress.

http://www.epa.gov/gasstar/basic-information/index.html

By including methane in greenhouse gas amelioration efforts quite a bit can be done more cost-effectively than by tackling CO2 alone.

[quote]Who exactly has reading comprehension problems? The sentence says this year is the warmest on record for the US.[/quote] ...and it's factually wrong; the heat waves of the 1930s were far worse than what we're seeing now, according to data provided by the EPA. Research shows that the temperatures from around AD 400 - AD 1100 were warmer than they are now.

Wow - an actual link. That's a start.

If I understand your most recent posts correctly, you are saying that pollution controls have an effect on pollution. That's an interesting point; I wish I'd said that. No, wait ... I did.

For a guy who was so busy whining (whinging?) about moving goal posts, you sure do a lot of it. There's the bit on pollution controls (previously they were somehow science-fiction-esque, now they make a difference). We also had CO - you dismissed it as a minor issue in one of your earlier posts, it became a bigger one later.

Back a few posts, NOx and hydrocarbons were 'things to worry about'. Looks like after you saw some numbers, you quit worrying about those chemicals, since they contradicted your point. Instead, you seem to have moved to CO2 as a major pollutant (tell you what - let's replace all the CO2 in your air with NO2).

There are a few more examples - you're now discussing 'modern' scooters, for instance, and the whole combustion product vs pollutant thing was, well, strange (did you think we didn't understand the difference between a chemical reaction and a nuclear one?).

--------

If your goal was to communicate a significant point in this thread, you pretty much failed. Stamping your feet and yelling 'obvious' doesn't really convey much information. Repeatedly insulting someone, while simultaneously failing to provide any actual data, definitions, arguments, or even simply failing to read what was written, is not the sign of a mature argument.

I know you won't believe me on that last point, but here's an experiment you can try: send a copy of this thread to a friend after anonymizing the names. Ask them who communicated more effectively, and more maturely.

But you did stick with the conversation - thanks for that. I have learned quite a few things, but I don't think many of them came from you. One of the things I found was this data, produced by the US Environmental Protection Agency, that contains measurements of projected vehicle emissions. I haven't dug through the numbers, but the net conclusion by the source indicates that ... wait for it ... motorcyles pollute more than cars. Is your next thesis going to be that the EPA was duped?

Anyway, I'm out of here. I probably won't return to this thread, unless there's something really egregious, so I'll let you have the final word here. Swing away, and I'll see you later.

The news article also didn't say how many hours at that rated output the salt dome system can hold but given the energy density of air probably not more than a few hours.

But the EPA application did:

When full, the inventory of stored air will support approximately 100 hours of generation at full rated generation output without recharge.

It's a salt dome, so they're planning on 2800 psi, significantly higher than existing CAES reservoirs (~1000 psi).

They are burning gas!
Read Section 2!

TL;DR: It's a Brayton-cycle hybrid CAES setup, you heap of bloody idiots.

Oh, uninformed twats all up in this thread; surprise, surprise.... (chiefly referring to submitter and GP)

First some links (as opposed to URLs as text -- this is 2012, learn HTML or GTFO):
EPA application you didn't link. A good read that should have been in TFS.
The company building it.
The gear to be used.

Okay, the submitter clearly got confused, but I think differently. Possibly from this sentence of the EPA application:

A natural gas fired reciprocating engine will power an emergency electric generator rated at 740 ekW, necessary to support starting the plant when power from the grid is unavailable (“black start”).

The other possibility is because it's a natgas-fueled hybrid CAES rig, which concept is apparently very difficult for a certain class of mushbrain to grasp.

This plant uses only electricity from the grid to compress air. Could well be from natgas (which is damn cheap these days, and less CO2 than oil or coal), but if so it'll probably be a modern combined-cycle plant with high efficiency. Could also be nuclear, hydro, wind, or coal.

It DOES, however, use natgas to run -- rather than simply blowing compressed air down to atmospheric in a turbine, they use the stored compressed air in a Brayton cycle. A conventional gas turbine exhibits low load range (typically can't run less than 50% of maximum power), because the compressor is designed for specific conditions; throttle it back, and you lose efficiency rapidly, and eventually it stops working completely.. With a hybrid CAES plant, though, the gas is pre-compressed, so you just add heat (burn natgas) and expand w/ reheat. This allows scaling to very low power output. (In this particular case, the very high storage pressure (1900~2830 psi) actually means they can put another turbine before combustion, blowing the air down to around 800 psi.)

Best i can tell is that they buy electricity during non-peak, and use that to compress the air so that it can be released against to drive the turbines during peak. Almost as if they are acting as electricity speculators (buy low, sell high).

More like cross-border arbitrage than speculation IMO; even though peak and off-peak pricing aren't set simultaneously, they both usually move slowly compared to the diurnal alternation of the two. So to me, rather than considering it a single market with wild periodic swings, it's useful to treat it as 2 (or many) concurrent markets, of which you can only trade in one at any given time.

Given that flea collars either do nothing or kill your pet, stores not carrying them is a great thing. Get a safe and effective flea prevention like Advantage/Advantix or Frontline instead.

Sounds like you bought those companies' bullshit marketing campaigns, hook, like, and sinker...

The EPA studied the large number of incidents and deaths associated with "Pet Spot-On Pesticides" in 2009, and discovered that:

"all products had some deaths and/or incidents clssified as major"

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/health/petproductseval.html

In fact flea collars are much safer, being a simpler, weaker and non medicinal, and not subject to ingestion which with drops causes severe medical problems. I happen to have owned dozens of cats and dogs in my life, with several flea infestations in that time, and can say with absolute certainty that flea collars do their jobs extremely well, and I've yet to see a single bad reaction.

You are probably making a mistake somewhere, but since there are no sources for your numbers, the Carbon Dioxide Information Analsysis Center (CDIAC) says that the world's fuel burning and cement use emitted 9,139 Tg of Carbon into the atmosphere in 2010, that's a little over 33.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

According to PBS, world carbon dioxide sources break down this way (The EPA has similar numbers):

1. 25.9% - energy supply
2. 19.4% - industry
3. 17.4% - forestry
4. 13.5% - agriculture
5. 13.1% - transportation
6. 7.9% - residential and commerical buildings
7. 2.8% - waste and waste water

So your back of the envelope calculation for human emissions looks like it's based on incorrect assumptions (under estimating because you only considered transportation and only in 2 countries).

If we try to fix the obvious errors and multiply your estimate by 7.7, to get from 13% to 100, that puts us at around 22 billion tons of CO2, which is still lower than the actual measured number. If we also account for only considering two countries (Wikipedia puts the combined emissions of China and the United States at around 41% of world emissions) by multiplying by 2.5, that gives us 55 billion tons of carbon dioxide from your estimate, which is almost double the measured amount. I'm guessing that your estimate of gas used for transportation is actually a little on the high side.

As for the amount of CO2 released by Mt. St. Helens, here's an article about the Eyjafjoell eruption. The estimate places it's emissions at around 150,000 tonnes of CO2 per day. Your calculation would mean the St. Helens eruption produced about 681,818 times the daily emissions of Eyjafjoell. According to wikipedia article on the Mt. St. Helens eruption only about 0.045 cubic miles of new lava was released, which means about the upper limit of CO2 emissions from lava would be about 153 million tonnes, that's for the initial eruption, the subsequent flows produced about an additional 0.05 cubic miles of new lava. That puts the estimate at a little over 300 million tonnes for the upper limit of the emissions using your conversion rates.

Except for the ones like Los Angeles, NYC, Atlanta and Las Vegas which are fed from lakes/reservoirs or New Orleans, St Louis, etc which pull from rivers. Or Tampa which uses RO.

If you don't believe me, Trust The Wiki!!! Or the Government.

Then whatever you are referencing is no more reliable than late 90's action movies. Shepherds five thousand years ago knew very well that their herds would happily destroy a field by grazing unless they were forcibly moved around, or kept in check by predators. The truth is closer to the opposite of what you've stated: humans are the only animal to have shown the ability to self regulate their activities to maintain a viable habitat.

Humans have had to force other humans to look after it. The horror stories of mineral extraction and manufacturing which have poisoned water, air and left spoiled wastes, which require Superfund cleanup are legion. Have a look at this some time when you are feeling this insane urge to believe everyone loves the Earth equally -- some just show up, get their profit and then move on, without a care to what they've done.

I've traveled extensively and have seen some pretty horrible things we've done in the name of profit and progress. Thank God and the few people who really cared for there now being requirements to look after proper waste processing and storage, rather than just throwing it in a hole out back.

a CFL bulb in it is insane. I broke one trying to open the package.

CFLs are a design problem themselves. Did you follow the proper cleanup procedure?

I'd like to meet the guy who designed clamshell packages in a dark alley.

To put something fragile like a CFL bulb in it is insane. I broke one trying to open the package..

Did you follow the EPA clean up procedure for broken CFL bulbs too?

You haven't provided a reference. So let's see if I can verify. Not that I am assuming the EPA website is correct, but I can attempt to check that later.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere increased from approximately 280 parts per million (ppm) in pre-industrial times to 382 ppm in 2006 according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Earth Systems Research Laboratory, a 36 percent increase.

1 PPM = 1/1000,000
1 Percent = 1/100
So the difference is 10^5.
280ppm/10^5 = .028% (just as you say)
382ppm/10^5 = .0382% (only slightly less than you say)

So the increase is 0.01% of atmosphereic C02 in (EPA doesn't specify exactly) 130 years or something like that. I'm sorry but that just doesn't seem like very much. Of course what is "a lot" of CO2 is simply undefined. As a percentage of the atmosphere neither 0.0382% nor 0.039% seem like a whole lot to me. Of course I could be wrong. Maybe it's such a huge amount and the greenhouse effect is sufficiently sensitive that the oceans should already be boiling. The question is whether or not anyone can answer that question solely relying on the scientific method and not on computer models. A twin earth would be a 100% congruent model and could be used to test exactly how much CO2 the atmosphere could take before some kind of runaway greenhouse effect took place.

5.6 seems to be the correct pH for rain water.
http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/education/site_students/phscale.html

Except for the part where CAIR isn't fully implemented yet and thus the problem is still current. Thank you for providing further evidence to help shed light on an issue illustrating what the government could be doing to help stem climate change.

New York is certainly covered by the rule and projections show in 2015 acid raid caused by the Ohio Valley will be slowed to a halt assuming we don't end up with another presidency openly hostile to environmental interests. I'd like to say the current administration is better than the last one in that they haven't repealed anymore environmental regulations but they haven't put the Clinton era ones back in place that were stripped away either so it remains to be seen where they will ultimately stand.

You DO need reasonable suspicion. One might expect that to require that some articulable thing has ever in written history actually indicated a crime.

Well, you can start here for examples of how improper storage, disposal, and / or transport of radioactive wastes has resulted in civil and criminal charges. There's quite a few.

Unsafe transport, storage, and disposal of radiological and other hazardous waste *is* illegal. Irradiating your fellow citizens against their will *is* illegal. Regulations suggest that "maximum" emissions on a vehicle transporting radiological waste is 200 mrem / hr at the *surface* of the vehicle. At 2 meters, the emission cannot register more than 10 mrem / hour. What appears to be a standard, vehicle-mounted detector will detect "Low" (1-10 mrem / hr), "Moderate" (10-100 mrem/hr), and High (100+ mrem / hr) levels, as well as a "minimum detectable level" based on current location's background readings, and statistical variation from that background.

Exposure to levels even at the LOW (1-10 mrem / hr) levels in units of days will result in a public health hazard. Higher levels create those same risks in units of hours, or even minutes, depending on intensity.

Average natural background radiation is in the order of 2.4 millisieverts per year, which translates to roughly 0.03 millirem per hour. So, let's say the detector flags as "minimum detectable" for anything between 0.03 millirem and 1 millirem, assuming you're in an area where radiation is roughly "average."

Now... you're in your squad car day in, day out, and that radioactivity detector never issues a peep. Then one day, it lights up, indicating a vehicle is emitting radiation that is statistically unlikely to be random variations in the background radiation levels. It *could*, given that the man was told to avoid close contact with other people, and stay away from his infant son for at least 24 hours, even be into the "Low" category of risk. And you look and see that the vehicle is not a transport vehicle with placards and other signage indicating that it is transporting hazardous materials, but a normal passenger vehicle. And that doesn't trigger even the slightest shred of "what the fuck is going on here?" suspicion?

Because that's ALL that's required, by law: the suspicion of a reasonable person to be aroused. At that point, it is entirely legal and within due process to make a traffic stop to investigate. What are possible crimes being committed? Well:
1) He's transporting radioactive materials illegally, or perhaps intends to dispose of them illegally;
2) He has been the victim of exposure to radiation through someone else's carelessness or deliberate intent, and so is at risk himself, or putting other people at risk;
3) He has a bomb and intends to set it off;

Of these, #3 is certainly the least likely, and of lowest actual concern. But there are other "reasonable" ways you could suspect a crime that don't even involve "terrorism." Given the number of Superfund sites, and the cost of cleanup for radiological contamination, I could certainly see where somebody who has some material they know to be hazardous might just dump it in the landfill on the sly. It happens - this is how some Superfund sites are created in the first place. Number 2 is perhaps less likely, but it's possible that he's been exposed, either knowingly (i.e., poisoned) or unwittingly, i.e., through some contamination of his home, water supply, food supply, work environment, etc., in which case there is a public safety risk.

Do you also advocate for police to only respond to car crashes when a crime is known to have been committed? If I'm a victim of road rage, they'll come help me, but if I experience mechanical failure, and I lose control, and sideswipe a guardrail, throwing debris across the highway and injuring myself (no crime committe

I will admit that at least some of us basically troll for fun by denying part 1 and part 2 above, because we hate the "solutions" to part 3.

Yeah, so this isn't very productive. Maybe try to figure out which solutions are actually good and push for those? Remember, problems don't go away when we don't like the solutions.

Usually part 3 is the establishment of a neo-pol pot regime, or national socialism, or some financial scam to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, or most commonly meaningless feel good frippery that will do absolutely nothing but "raise awareness".

I'm curious incidentally which solutions you think fall into these categories. I agree that quite a bit falls into the feel good frippery category. Godwin's law aside, last I checked no one was advocating large scale genocide as a solution. At the very minimum, burning people in ovens would make more CO2.

I''m particularly interested into which category you put the most widely suggested method of dealing with CO2 - cap and trade. Cap and trade is a system that has worked quite well for other pollutants. For example, there's clear evidence that cap and trade has worked well in dealing with sulfur dioxide, both reducing emissions and having little negative economic impact. See for example http://www.epa.gov/capandtrade/documents/ctresults.pdf and http://www.jstor.org/stable/2647032 (although it certainly has had its bumps especially due to conflicting court cases and legislation. See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704258604575360821005676554.html. Cap and trade works, since it hybridizes government regulation with market solutions. It estimates the cost of the pollutant to society and then lets the market figure out the most efficient way of keeping the pollutant down. There's a reason that George H. W. Bush helped get cap-and-trade in the Clean Air Act and that many see it is as example of a successful government regulation http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/us/politics/17cap.html?pagewanted=all.

I'm also curious as to what category you put improvements to the electric grid such as adding grid storage and smart grids. All of these can have real, substantial impact. And in the case of grid improvements, they have substantial other benefits as well. There isn't going to be one magic bullet solution to all our CO2 problems or a magic bullet to solve all our energy problems, and certainly not one that will solve both. But there are real, substantial steps that can be taken that don't involve loss of liberties. Comparisons to Nazis are unhelpful hyperbole.

I agree that 84% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists%27_views_on_climate_change) is not unanimous, but it's getting closer every year.
Unless, ofcourse, you count the opinion of people who don't understand the science involved and blame other people for their own lack of understanding.

Like the EPA?. Tell me if you can spot the huge logic hole in this statement:

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period

Remember, these are the people writing policy and regulations concerning our rights with respect to climate change.

I think you made the point better than the parent to your post ever could.

You don't understand the science, so you call it a logic hole. In fact, if you think that's a logic hole your grasp of logic isn't too crash hot either.

Take this gem, from the EPA itself:

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period

Am I the only one who fails to see the massive logic fail in that statement? If methane only lasts for 9-15 years, how is more effective at trapping heat over a 100 year period?

I've already explained this to you, using a very simple analogy with a hare and a tortoise. Did you not understand?

It makes no difference if the vast majority of the effect from the methane happens over 9-15 years. We can still say how much effect it had over any length of time we choose. Over 15 years, say, it might have 70 times the effect of CO2. Over 50 years it might have 45 times the effect of CO2. Over 100 years it might have 20 times. Over 500 years it might have 4 times the effect. [These figures are not meant to be exact, they are purely to illustrate the concept]

Do you understand it now?

I agree that 84% (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists%27_views_on_climate_change) is not unanimous, but it's getting closer every year.
Unless, ofcourse, you count the opinion of people who don't understand the science involved and blame other people for their own lack of understanding.

Like the EPA?. Tell me if you can spot the huge logic hole in this statement:

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period

Remember, these are the people writing policy and regulations concerning our rights with respect to climate change.

The "Other Planets are Heating up too" hypothesis has been debunked:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/04/29/is-global-warming-solar-induced/

But, until the engineers get involved on a real fix I wouldn't bother changing your lifestyle, other than maybe switching to LED lights and turning down the thermostat. Politicians never fix anything.

From your blog post:

Mars: To start, is Mars even warming globally at all? Perhaps not — it might be a local effect.

Jupiter: The evidence for Jupiter’s global warming is nothing of the sort. It is evidence that there are warm spots, with storms rising to the tops of the clouds. This may just be a local effect, and not global.

Therefore it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between factors like the Sun warming up Triton anomalously, or just the usual changes in the moon due to seasons.

As for tiny Pluto, its dynamics are very poorly understood. What we do see is that its atmosphere appears to be thicker than expected right now. Pluto doesn’t have much of an air blanket, and it changes over the course of Pluto’s orbit as the tiny iceball approaches and recedes from the Sun. Pluto reached perihelion, the closest point in its orbit to the Sun, in 1989, and is slowly drawing away again. You might think its atmosphere would start freezing out, getting thinner. But that’s not happening; it’s getting quite a bit thicker.
However, this is not totally unexpected. Changes are not instantaneous, and it may take a while for things to thaw.

The BLOG post you linked to is full of "may be" and we don't know. He consistently claims there is no warming, then claims that we don't know what's causing the warming. For example, on Jupiter he claims that there is no evidence for warming and then in the same paragraph claims that the warming may be local. Again, MAY BE local. And if there is no evidence of warming, what local warming is he talking about?

Finally, he pulls a classic fallacy of "Poisoning the well":

And the guy who is proposing that the Sun is warming Mars doesn’t think CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

OK, so he doesn't think that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. What does that have to do with his ability to judge the temperature on Mars? Also, it's not true. What the article your blog used as a source said was, "Heading Pulkovo's space research laboratory is Dr. Abdussamatov, one of the world's chief critics of the theory that man-made carbon dioxide emissions create a greenhouse effect, leading to global warming." and "It is no secret that increased solar irradiance warms Earth's oceans, which then triggers the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So the common view that man's industrial activity is a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect relations." So, it's not that he doesn't believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but he questions the source of CO2 and its overall effect.

I have an open mind and take an agnostic approach to AGW. Unfortunately, I see a whole lot more BS coming from the global warming crowd. Take this gem, from the EPA itself:

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period

Am I the only one who fails to see the massive logic fail in that statement? If methane only lasts for 9-15 years, how is more effective at trapping heat over a 100 year period?

But, until the engineers get involved on a real fix I wouldn't bother changing your lifestyle, other than maybe switching

http://www.epa.gov/hiri/ "The term "heat island" describes built up areas that are hotter than nearby rural areas. The annual mean air temperature of a city with 1 million people or more can be 1.8–5.4F (1–3C) warmer than its surroundings. In the evening, the difference can be as high as 22F (12C)." Great news story, I really feel clued in to the important issues of the day. *kills self*

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

From your source:

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources. Human-influenced sources include landfills, natural gas and petroleum systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, stationary and mobile combustion, wastewater treatment, and certain industrial process.

"Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period" and "Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years".

Am I the only one who sees a huge logic flaw in that 100-year figure given the 9-15 year figure? How do the intelligent people here on Slashdot keep their bullshit meter from flying off the handle?

Modding this "Overrated" does not make it any less true.

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

From your source:

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources. Human-influenced sources include landfills, natural gas and petroleum systems, agricultural activities, coal mining, stationary and mobile combustion, wastewater treatment, and certain industrial process.

"Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period" and "Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years".

Am I the only one who sees a huge logic flaw in that 100-year figure given the 9-15 year figure? How do the intelligent people here on Slashdot keep their bullshit meter from flying off the handle?

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

So why hasn't a feedback loop destroyed the earth?

The time constant > your lifetime.

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

So why hasn't a feedback loop destroyed the earth?

20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Warmer planet = more melting permafrost = more methane release = warmer planet.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/

I'd be far more worried about the water laced with sand and chemicals that is shot down into the Earth to release this gas from the shale. They can't leave it down there for fear of it seeping into the water table and when they suck it up, what do they do with it?

First, let me put out there that I Am A Frac Engineer (IAAFE), so take what I am about to say for what that's worth...

Sand (or other suitable grain material, known as "proppant") is pumped into a hydrocarbon-bearing formation to keep induced fractures propped open after frac operations have finished, so that such fractures do not close up (negating the effects of creating the fractures in the first place). Sand keeps that "highway" open from the fracture network in the formation to the wellbore, so that oil and gas can freely flow to the production tubulars and up to the surface. I assure you that the intention, by design, is to *keep* the sand in the formation, not "suck it back up".

The best frac fluid by far (for optimum oil and gas production) is plain freshwater with no additives whatsoever. However, in the real world various additives are necessary to make fracturing possible: anti-clay swelling agents (NaCl, KCl) are needed to keep clays in the formation rock from swelling up and closing up pore throats, acrylamide polymers are needed to reduce the pipe friction of water at fracturing rates so that surface pressures are minimized, surfactants are used to reduce the surface tension of the water so that the water does not block up the pores and fissures by capillary effects, guar gum is used to gel up the water so that sands don't settle out of the water too soon (causing the sand to bridge off and block flow), etc. The total concentration of chemical additives used in the frac fluid usually does not exceed 0.5% by volume, and at those concentrations are relatively benign.

Frac fluids are flowed back naturally to surface, not "sucked up". The reason they are flowed back is that, well, you can't immediately tie the well to a sales line and start selling it until the produced fluids meet a certain quality. The first fluids that flow back out are the last you put in (LIFO), so by extension the frac fluid would be the first fluids back to surface (and they aren't worth anything to any gas pipeline companies or oil refiners), so they must be stored in a tank and hauled off to wherever it goes (either disposed of in a permitted waste disposal well, or recycled for other frac jobs).

It's well known that it contaminates water supply but greed can overpower any environmental problems.

No, it is not a well-known fact. It is presumed in some cases, but not proven. The link you cited has many other factors that have contributed to water contamination, including the shallowness of the hydrocarbon-bearing formation, and the fact that surface retention pits were largely unregulated for a certain period of time. Surface pollution *is* well known to cause water contamination. Engineers and geologists also know that if your hydrocarbon-bearing formation is within a few hundred feet of a water table, that hydraulically-induced fractures *can* propagate into them. There are a few scientific methods for measuring hydraulically-induced fracture growth, which have been utilized in every active shale play in the United States.

It is perfectly legal today to 'tinker' with the software running your car today

Not necessarily correct in all locations. Any area in with an EPA non-attainment, you will likely run into trouble when you get your vehicle safety inspection done. Yes, it varies. Yes, you are responsible for determining what modifications are legal in your jurisdiction.

http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/water/a_wateruse.html

According to this website public water supply domestic water use (85% of domestic water use) is about 11% of american water consumption

http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/indoor.html

According to this website, the toilet uses about 25% of water in the home.

Thus, by mandating a change to high pressure low flow toilets, if we assume that most people are still using the old toilets (3.5-7 gallon flush) and extrapolating from those figures, toilet water use is roughly 2.5% of american water use. By changing to efficient toilets (80% less water), this could maybe be brought down to 0.5%-1% of american water use.

In contrast, according to above mentioned first website, thermo-electric power generation comprised 52% of water use. So theoretically if America cut power consumption by 4%, it would equal the water savings of more efficient toilets. Since residential counts for about 35% of electrical use, if you saved 12% power in your home, you could save enough (and consequently the water required to generate it) to run a large volume flush toilet. There are also more ways to reduce the water consumption of electrical generation, like wind power, solar power, and hydro power.

I take it you're not disputing that 98% of climatologists are convinced that climate change is occurring, and is human-caused.

As for the negative effects of this change, IPCC Working Group II covered that pretty well. There's plenty of similar reports from other bodies too, including individual climatologists.Are you claiming that these do not represent the majority opinion, or just nit-picking about the exact figure?

It's actually about 72 times over the first 20 years, and declines to 7.6 times over 500 years. 72 is not good, but you also have to figure the relative amount of emissions and the lifetime in the atmosphere. About 12 years in methane will degrade to become CO2. Now if we are emitting a thousand times more CO2 than Methane, then it should be clear that CO2 which can last for thousands of years in the atmosphere is a bigger problem. By the way, we've increased methane levels by approximately 1 part per million over the last 250 years, while we've increased CO2 by 114 parts per million.

So ask yourself what's bigger, 72 or 114. And that's the short term effect. The long term is 7.6 or 114. Lastly it doesn't look like Methane emissions are climbing very much. Looking at the U.S. EPA Chart shows that Methane emissions have grown almost 2% over the last 30 years.

You need to look at the big picture, in a triage situation you address the biggest and easiest to control problem first, and in this case it's CO2 emissions, which are 1.5 times worse over the next 15 years and about 15 times worse over the long run.

It would help if you provided a link to your studies. A simple back-of-the-envelope check on how much is added to our lives (2-5 years) and how much of our CO2 footprint is from "personal vehicle use" (out of 5718 Tg total in 2010, 1128.4, = .65 times 1736, pages 4 and 8 (pdf)) suggests that the answer is not so clear-cut.

(Your remark/snark about bike helmets suggests you are just casually quoting something you heard, and have not really looked into the issue. Other people have. Helmets are not a large factor in cyclist life expectancy compared to the health benefits of cycling itself.)

The high-end expected extra life is 7% (if you are male, and ride vigorously, assume expected life span of 74.7 years), but with "average" exertion, only 5% (3 years). Cycling extends female expected lifespan by only 2.7% to 4.7%.

20% of our CO2 emissions come from personal vehicle use. If you ride a bike instead of driving, your yearly footprint will not be as large, and thus the total footprint will not be as large, either.

Suppose you use a bicycle to displace 50 miles of "personal vehicle use" per week. That's 2500/year. If you assume the maximum extra life from cycling, and would otherwise drive your car 7500/year, it's a wash (7500/2500=3; 20%/7%=3). If only average (and 50mi/week is not that big a deal), then 10000/year, and it's a wash. For women, displacing 2500 a year with a bike puts them ahead if they would otherwise drive less than 10,600 to 18,500 miles per year.

For the male half of the population, cycling is probably a net environmental loss, for the female half, it is probably a net win. This is obviously crude -- we don't drive our entire lives (so the percentage added is larger), but we don't drive as much when we are old, as we do when we have a commute and kids and etc (so extra years are not as costly). The car miles displaced by cycling also tend to be the least efficient (slow, stop-and-go, short trips), which slightly favors cycling.

Human-fuel also enters into it, but on most foods our full-cycle energy cost is pretty good (equivalent of 780mpg on potatoes; 145mpg on skim milk; 1500-3000mpg on oats). Beef is not a good plan, but a steady diet of beef-for-bike-fuel would probably negate the health benefits of cycling anyway (too much protein for too long, not good for your kidneys).

This claim also assumes that people won't pursue other steps to live longer lives. If there was a pill that would extend people's lives by five years, and had good-sized health studies as evidence, it's a safe assumption that people would take it (provided, of course, that the pill did not make them sweat or have wind-blown or helmet-hair). And if/when such a pill is found, the extra-years environmental "cost" of cycling disappears (unless the pill and exercise have non-overlapping physiological benefits).

According to the EPA (and other places), radio waves are firmly in the non-ionizing range whereas x-rays are definitely in the ionizing range. You'll have to provide some evidence that near field effects increase radio wave energy sufficiently to shift the radiation into the ionizing range with cell phones; I couldn't find any, and it's a strong claim to make. Considering the lack of unambiguous cell phone/cancer links I doubt such evidence exists.

I answered it with the first word of my comment.

Look, this info is available from the EPA.

Golf TDI: http://ofmpub.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Detailsresult.do?vehicle_ID=148072
Prius: http://ofmpub.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Detailsresult.do?vehicle_ID=148099
Toyota Corolla: http://ofmpub.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Detailsresult.do?vehicle_ID=148072

So, the Golf has emissions roughly 50% than the Prius, and identical smog particulates to the Corolla (while producing marginally less greenhouse gas), while getting much better mileage.

Doesn't exactly sound like I'm killing the air.

I answered it with the first word of my comment.

Look, this info is available from the EPA.

Golf TDI: http://ofmpub.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Detailsresult.do?vehicle_ID=148072
Prius: http://ofmpub.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Detailsresult.do?vehicle_ID=148099
Toyota Corolla: http://ofmpub.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Detailsresult.do?vehicle_ID=148072

So, the Golf has emissions roughly 50% than the Prius, and identical smog particulates to the Corolla (while producing marginally less greenhouse gas), while getting much better mileage.

Doesn't exactly sound like I'm killing the air.

I answered it with the first word of my comment.

Look, this info is available from the EPA.

Golf TDI: http://ofmpub.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Detailsresult.do?vehicle_ID=148072
Prius: http://ofmpub.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Detailsresult.do?vehicle_ID=148099
Toyota Corolla: http://ofmpub.epa.gov/greenvehicles/Detailsresult.do?vehicle_ID=148072

So, the Golf has emissions roughly 50% than the Prius, and identical smog particulates to the Corolla (while producing marginally less greenhouse gas), while getting much better mileage.

Doesn't exactly sound like I'm killing the air.

e-ink.

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showpost.php?p=619831&postcount=11

The vast majority of trees which are cut for paper pulp are quick-growing loblolly pines which will be re-planted almost immediately, larger, older, nicer trees are usually cut for lumber, so one should be able to let the 8.85 pounds of CO_2 for per book figure stand for paper products w/o concern for deforestation.

Here's a page which indicates most CO_2 production is for energy:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html

And here's a page which indicates that CO_2 production is a much larger problem for the manufacturing of electronics:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49730
w/ a ratio of 12 to 1 for energy usage to weight, so my PRS-505 weighs roughly 9 ozs., so presumably required 108 ounces of fuel to manufacture (on-going energy usage is discounted as being negligible so is not considered)
http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm
gives us a figure of 19.4 pounds of CO_2 per gallon of gasoline which equals roughly 16.36875 pounds of CO_2 to make the ebook reader.

So getting two books for the Sony should make it roughly break even, and each printed book beyond that which is not purchased should result in a net reduction of CO_2 emissions, since the energybulletin.net page indicates that the embodied energy usage for electronics is much greater than the lifetime usage.

1) The government mandated "oxygenate," not MTBE. Ethanol also satisfied the mandate.

2) Gasoline has been leaking into the environment for decades; it wasn't a problem because gas and water don't mix. MTBE loves water, and they're very difficult to separate once mixed:

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/mtbe/clean.htm

I'm not a chemist, but "5 years" sounds very optimistic to me.

3) Oxygenate (MTBE or Ethanol) is pointless because it doesn't lessen smog, when used in modern cars; the O2 sensor compensates, richening the mixture and lowering mileage, and the smog output doesn't change.

stuart

Not true. http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport.html

Dang, first post got eaten. Anyways - on enforcing the law. I did some research. It bans the importation and manufacture of non-compliant bulbs. It doesn't make selling them domestically illegal, nor possession, etc... So unless you're running a factory or importing business, I don't think you have to worry. Just like the toilets. They aren't going to break down people's doors looking for them.

Even you can see the right answer. So why go with a wrong one?

Remember I only stepped in to explain the analogy. Didn't say I agreed with it. I think we can both agree that pollution, especially too much of it, can be bad.

But not from light bulbs.

Let's see: ~70k deaths from air pollution in the USA per year. The UK is 50k. Worldwide is 1.3M per year.
Lighting is 9% of electricity usage.
Eyeballing this and averaging the four sources, I get 24% of air pollution from energy production and distribution. EPA says 67% sulfur dioxide, 23% nitrogen oxide. I dropped CO2. That would be 45%. I'll stick with 24%.

Using a straight blame - 70k deaths from air pollution. 17k would be from electricity generation. 1.5k for pollution from powering lights, on average. 28k worldwide.
So yeah, I can trace thousands of deaths to the pollution from light bulbs. Making matters worse - there's plenty of survivors affected - per 75 deaths there are '505 hospital admissions for asthma and other respiratory diseases, 3,500 respiratory emergency doctor visits, 180,000 asthma attacks, 930,000 restricted activity days, and 2,000,000 acute respiratory symptom days.' Per 75 deaths seems an odd measure to use, but it's what the article listed. That's a lot of lost labor due to the pollution.

As for the baseload vs peak - 'not many lights are left on overnight'? I refer you to this image. And coal power isn't entirely baseload - fire up another boiler, spin another turbine. It might have to be scheduled a bit more compared to hydro or NG, but it's there.

Look, it's not that we don't agree on some things, it's just that, well, if you're going to argue this stuff, you need to do it right, and denying facts isn't going to help. I lean majorly libertarian, but given the pollution levels in my town on occasion,

There is a nearly endless supply of methane there

No. Not even remotely endless.

In the U.S., cattle emit about 5.5 million metric tons of methane per year into the atmosphere, accounting for 20% of U.S. methane emissions.

Because of their biology, cattle are the predominant source: landfills, wastewater treatment, etc. add up to a roughly equal amount, so let's say 12 million metric tons of methane from all biological sources total.

In contrast, the US consumes about 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year, which works out to473 million metric tons/year.

All the farts in the nation add up to just 3% of the amount of natural gas we burn. In fact, in the US cows release less methane than the amount that accidentally leaks from natural gas pipes!

There is a nearly endless supply of methane there

No. Not even remotely endless.

In the U.S., cattle emit about 5.5 million metric tons of methane per year into the atmosphere, accounting for 20% of U.S. methane emissions.

Because of their biology, cattle are the predominant source: landfills, wastewater treatment, etc. add up to a roughly equal amount, so let's say 12 million metric tons of methane from all biological sources total.

In contrast, the US consumes about 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas a year, which works out to473 million metric tons/year.

All the farts in the nation add up to just 3% of the amount of natural gas we burn. In fact, in the US cows release less methane than the amount that accidentally leaks from natural gas pipes!

Natural Gas (Methane) is likely the worst[0][1] possible choice for replacing gasoline. I don't understand how they arrived at this conclusion, other than by lobbyist funding from Big Oil/Big Energy to remain relevant with existing infrastructures.

[0] - http://www.epa.gov/methane/
[1] - http://www.google.com/search?q=methane+worse+for+climate+change&btnG=Search

Very cute. Forget the WSJ. Get it directly from the EPA [1]. Are they right-wing? I haven't checked lately.

My original point is that extreme environmentalists can label anything as harmful and thus restrict all human activity. It's borderline tyranny.

[1] http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html

Good call. You're right. If you actually look into this thing, you'll see that the lawsuit represents only 60 farmers . It is the organizations that have over 300,000 members. So, to make it look like farmers really hate GMOs (guess what, they don't, ask one sometime), they count every member as a farmer. There's less than a million farmers in the US. Basically, this is just the anti-GMO people being lying assholes on par with anti-vaxxers and evolution deniers, and unfortunately, most people know jack about agriculture they think that numbers like that are actually realistic. Yep, 1/3 farmers hate Monsanto, yet over 90% of some crops are their GE seed. How did this nonsense get called news?

Citation? When I look at the EPA's GHG inventory for the US, on page 5 I see that Electricity Generation leads with 2.2Pg (Pg = petagram = 10e15 grams). Next is Transportation at 1.7Pg. After that Industrial at .7Pg. All of CH4 (as CO2 equivalent) is .7Pg, all of N2O is .3Pg. Volcanos worldwide are .2Pg.

And, page 9: "Transportation End-Use Sector. Transportation activities (excluding international bunker fuels) accounted for 33 percent of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in 2009. Virtually all of the energy consumed in this end-use sector came from petroleum products. Nearly 65 percent of the emissions resulted from gasoline consumption for personal vehicle use." .65 times 1.7Pg = 1.1Pg, or 20% of our total CO2 (not CO2-equivalent) emissions. In the US, cars are number two, after electricity generation. What are these "lots of other things" that would be better for us to cut, and how much are their yearly emissions?

World emissions are at about 30 Pg, so US automobiles alone account for about 3.7%, ignoring cars in all other countries. World-wide, "road transport" produces 5Pg of CO2 (p. 10), or 1/6 of the total, with no breakdown into personal and not. It is possible that US personal car use alone is not in the top ten of world-wide sources of CO2, but I'd like to see a reference for that or an explanation. World wide, 41% is "electricity and heat". The next big category is "transport" at 23%, then "industry" at 20%, "other" at 10%, and "residential" at 6%. Obviously, there's some category shuffling going on here (transport includes ships and airplanes, too), but if you carved out the world-wide top two (ignoring our contribution to "transport"), our 3.7% for personal autos looms decently large against the remaining 40%. It's bigger than ships, world-wide, it's bigger than airplanes, world-wide.

This might have something to do with why people who worry about global warming don't much like big, wasteful automobiles. They have the secondary problem of making the road a scarier place for people who might like to drive smaller cars or take a motorcycle, scooter, or bicycle. And in theory, yes, we could switch to a GHG-free fuel for our cars and then people could choose them just as huge as SUVs today. But here on Planet Earth, for the next ten years or so, that is not much of an option. An E-vehicle can be more efficient, but right now a whole lot of "E" comes from coal-fired power plants, so it's best to keep them small, and use them where they win biggest (start/stop driving so they can use regenerative braking).