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...I don't know if that's who employed "Physics Phil", but the math works. Why, I'm about to write a pamphlet. Fuck this peer review shit...
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ah, good old phyics phil.
thanks for a sensible argument. it's always difficult to strike a balance between the "oh my god, the world's going to end tomorrow" folks and the "bah, nothing is wrong" folks. the question with climate change has been, for a while, how much is our doing and what is going to happen as a result? that a reversion to glaciation is a possible outcome of rising global temperatures is one the reasons people feel they can dismiss the science. cause, you know, how could getting warmer make it colder? granted, there are people who think that a cool day in july negates years of research, but there you have it. i should probably move inland, shouldn't i?
as for oil consumption: we'll never go back on energy use. everyday, so new power devouring gadget comes out. and i think you are correct in that we won't stop using oil till it's all gone. it's simply a matter of, well, money. solar energy, for instance...not so much a money maker. once you get past the initial cost, it's damn cheap. the more efficent photovoltic cells become, the cheaper it gets. widely available, renewable energy sources are not the source of wealth that oil is; thus those that profit from it will make sure we keep using it till it's gone. whilst bombarding us advertsiments about how environmentally responsible they are: chevron is the world's largest generator of geothermal energy? fanatastic! if you live in iceland, or possibly in yellowstone. hydrogen is hailed as the energy savior, but right now the "most efficient" means to get it is from hydro-carbons...such as oil. so, yippie?
anyway, the gist is it's a damn complex situation, with no easy answers and no economic incentive to change in a meaningful way.
also, i thought you should know that the comment bar this morning, as a result of your post here, read: "Incidentally -- John Dillinger's Penis -- You Nailed HIlary -- damnit" |
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(in the incidental poetry that is. perfect.)
I tried to find if there was a P. Phil connection, but I don't have a clue as to his last name, even though "Physics Phil" got a few google hits. I'm pretty sure that myspace page isn't actually his.
What do you think are the odds that solar and whatever will meet anything like the demand when oil eventually goes (even more) through the roof? Hope it doesn't hurt (my kids) too much. I'm really sick of driving, but I found out the hard way that a "solar flashlight" is a joke.
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Just wanted to hop in and say I enjoyed (well, is that the term you use for a mainly technical argument) your article and the links. My brother does ice samples, by the way, Mt Logan and the such (he's been to 18,000 ft there, some beautiful pictures and harrowing stories .. like being snowed in for a couple of weeks, that sort of thing). Don't see him that often but when we do the conversation is always interesting. (Note he's not the prof type, more the guy keeping people alive type.)
One thing I find difficult, speaking of this Hayden business, is sussing out the brilliant mind gone wayward versus the in-way-over-their-head mind that's just found itself in the wrong spot at the right time. I suppose that's on me, but with one you want to say too bad on all of us, and with, well, maybe it's almost the same thing.
Keep on keeping on, man ...
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| Re: Glad I could do my part |
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near term, not good. long term? depends on when people start getting serious about it. i know photovoltic cell efficiency is on the increase. someone recently invented what is essentially a fabric like solar cell (in that you can roll it up, put it on anything), though the cell efficiancy is rather low right now.
we might need some new ideas though, instead of working on improving what we have figured out. lately, i've been thinking about chlorophyll. has anyone ever explored the possibility of genetically engineered bio-energy cells? now, i have no idea if this is a viable avenue to pursue, but consider that a) we know chlorophyll is a very efficient utilizer of solar energy; and b) we know that certain animals, such as electric eels, are capable of producing fairly high voltage shocks (up to 650 volts, i believe). now, this is certainly a sci-fi/mad scientist sort of idea, but consider...what drives bio-electric cells? the energy produced by respiration. what does chlorphyll do? uses solar energy to drive respiration. now, granted, we're talking plant vs. animal respiration and we'd need to figure out how to generate constant output from bio-electirc cells, instead of producing short bursts. i don't have the knowledge to know if it's ridiculous to even think up stuff like this, but given our current level of technology, it seems like something that could be pursued. certainly there would be some drawbacks i could think of: fragility, aging, the possibility of disease...all the problems living cells have these days.
all of our non-radioactive or physical (ie. hydro, wind, tidal, etc. ) energy sources are ulitmately derived from solar energy (heck, wind could be partly considered solar in nature too). why not figure out how to tap directly into that source? fusion power seems to be stuck somewhere in the "we can't make it worthwhile" stage, but that's another avenue that could still be pursued too. oil, gas and coal have the benefit of portability. wind, geo-thermal, hydro, tidal energy are all limited by location. fission nuclear power is very stigmatized in the US, and seems a non-viable viable solution. fusion nuclear power is still a pipe dream. bio-fuels and hydrogen are still tied to oil. solar seems, to me, the best avenue to pursue (for earth based energy needs), given that it's everywhere and the giant fusion reactor in the sky is going to stick around for a few more billion years.
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Too sick to move, I found myself watching a documentary yesterday afternoon about one Fred Leuchter. He is an engineer who was deposed as an expert witness in your country in a trial of some fruitcake neo-Nazi who'd published a pamphlet of holocaust denial in the 80s. (Evidently publishing that sort of thing is a crime up there. Voltaire shakes his head.) Leuchter was sent to Auschwitz to assess whether cyanide had been used in mass executions there. He inspected teh facilities (which had been pretty well torn apart in the preceding 40 years), and made a lot of hay about taking samples of the masonry, which he then sent to a lab to test for cyanide. The tests came back negative, and it made a lot of fuel for holocaust deniers everywhere.
Leuchter had been in the business of designing execution equipment, which probably tells you something about the (a)moral tradeoffs he was willing to make, and in the interviews, his personality seemed a little obsessive, and to be lacking some certain social functions, a weasely little pack-rat type. At any rate, he was pretty confident of his engineering abilities, and disinclined to weigh the ethical consequences of what he did for a living.
I could imagine someone being asked to collect the data at Auschwitz and following through as a sense of duty to teh truth. (I mean, the world needs criminal defense attorneys too.) Leuchter, on the other hand, mistakenly and arrogantly believed he had the forensics or chemistry qualifications to gather these samples and analyze the evidence (his samples weren't good, and the buildings had been scattered to rubble anyway), and ignored all of the other evidence--photographs, reports, requisitions, eyewitnesses, millions disappeared--that suggest the more obvious truth.
Even here, if Leuchter had limited it to saying that no, he found no evidence of cyanide and reported his methods, it would have been one thing, but he joined the lecture circuit of holocaust deniers. If he noticed the scum he was surrounded by, it didn't seem to bother the guy. To me, he sounded too simple to be capable of that sort of hate himself, but I'm thinking that he liked the attention. Well past time to write the bastard off. His was a mind somewhat short of brilliance, but he still crossed the lines.
I find it difficult to suss out too. I don't like to use character as a refutation of someone's argument--easy and tempting, and way too much of that going around already--but I definitely think Hayden (who is a much better mind, let's be clear, and whose political opinions seem no worse than your typical American right wing) gets a kick out of beng an asshole. I don't think I'm wrong to call him dishonest, but there may be a better way to frame it.
Twiff: I have a buddy (haven't talked to him for two years), who's researching bio-hydrogen. Engineering little bugs to poop fuel, basically, neat stuff. It's things like this that keep me from dismissing H2 altogether, but it certainly won't end up looking like the gasoline infrastructure. As to whether anything like that gets moving before we all get pissed and blow each other up, it's a matter of how slow the slide is, I suppose.
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the plus of H2 is water vapor as emissions. the drawbacks are figuring out low-cost production methods (that don't involve hydrocarbons) and, more importantly, storage. particularly, storage that won't explode in a car accident. i've heard tell that producing it via electroysis (aka, that science experiment we all did in 6th grade) is cost prohibative, because the price of the energy winds up being more than profit from the hydrogen. again, this seems like a perfect situation to use solar power, in order to generate the electricity to split that H2 off the O. hell, it seems particularly well suited to a semi-closed system, where the H2O emissions could be recaptured and reused. however, such ideas run counter to my cynical belief that H2 energy is being most actively persued as an oil replacement because it is still something that can be sold. afterall, if you don't ever need to refuel, then how can you sell fuel? perhaps i'm tapping into my inner conspiracy theorist here, but it seems that much alternate fuel research is spearheaded by existing energy (ie: oil) companies. electric generation and supply, as a utility, is profitable but not lucrative. the money is in fuel, so why would you work to develop any oil alternative that was not a fuel? you'd be driving yourself out of business. or at least radically changing a lucrative business model; not something corporations like to do. |
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Be well! I just got over my second winter cold. (And not going south til May this year.)
You do well here to mention a third category (of guys to watch out for):
* we had the brilliant mind, wrong field guy (hello, michael jordan of science)
* we had the twit who found himself in a position of prominence
* now you mention or hint at the agenda-driven, or bought-and-paid for political animal/hack
How does an honest smart guy find his way in such a jungle? Re the latter group, I remember commenting to twif a good three years ago about a conference I went to out in BC (mainly on the geologic history of the area, and including a trip to the Burgess Shale of Stephen Gould fame); didn't know til I got out there that the conference was sponsored by Shell, and lots of anti- this and that speakers from Shell, too (put it this way, the sun is their best friend). Bright guys all, but how to turn down that pay cheque (like your crim defense comment)?
I wonder of this is the guy (Ernst Zundel) who was paired up with this Leuchter character. I remember daily headlines it seemed, probably two decades ago, and I remember thinking just shut this guy up .. zero redeeming value. |
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With storage, people worry about power, how fast can you get the juice out. You can use batteries sort of okay, that gets it out at constant voltage, but it takes some major engineering to turn that into a substantial current. (I have no idea what they do for hybrid and battery-powered cars, probably charge up capacitors or something.) Hydrogen fuel cells can--at least I think I remember this correctly--operate at higher current, which makes it nice for applications like running a car or whatever. They can also get it fairly cleanly wrt other types of fuel cells.
Hydrogen also makes sense as an in-between in some cases. I was reading some papers a while ago on photocatalytic splitting of water, which is one sensible solar application, and the case where germs poop the stuff is another. But hydrogen filling stations? Retarded.
And even if it doesn't bring back muscle cars, we should still consider getting what we can from teh sun (and the deep earth). How much solar infrastructure do you think the US government could have bought for the price of a trillion dollar war?
Added: there's a huge demand for solar infrastructure right now (though it may well be transient). But just short of enough demand to hire a schmuck like me, unfortunately. |
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with hydrogen fuel cells, if i recall correctly, they require refueling. so, yeah, there would be hydrogen filling stations. i recall seeing something about a H2 filling station that did use solar power to split water, then stored it for filling up car tanks. that seems sensible too, but i'd think one would want a version of that in the car as well (that semi-closed system i mentioned)
hopefully the demand for solar infrastructure will drive improvements in photovoltic technology. some interesting stuff here (poke around). |
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Well, subdividing the last group, there's the self-aware party whore (I usually think comrade Simes from 1984, but that movie was almost as good as it should have been). Then there's the unwitting corporate tool (Winston Smith?), which maybe bridges your last two categories.
Ernst Zundel was indeed the guy. Total douchebag. |
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