Cost of visiting period properties

[biffvernon]

but what about coal? China seems to be doing quite well on it. When is peak-coal expected anyway? I'd say we have another century or so to develop practical alternatives to fossil fuels - after all, look at the progress we've made in the last century.
And yes, I know coal is the fuel of the climate-change devil, but we'd better get used todealing with it because as long as it's there we're going to burn it until there is a practical alternative.

No way. China's coal has already peaked - that's why they import so much from Australia. Global peak coal will be very soon and like oil, we've already burnt the high quality easy to get at half.

You know coal is the fuel of the climate-change devil so you should be pointing out that every extra lump burnt brings us closer to extinction. Any alternative is more practical than making Earth uninhabitable.

 

[Flyfisher]

Any alternative?
Apparently, the 7 billionth person living on the planet was born today, somewhere. I suppose switching off all fossil fuel powered things would do wonders for the climate, though it might not help feed those 7 billion people so, in practice, it's not going to happen is it? We need practical alternatives, not any alternatives.

Apparently (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515), I was only number 2,871,548,893 when I arrived on the planet, so it's not my fault. :wink:

I find it hard to believe that peak coal is almost upon us when UK known reserves are supposed to be good for many decades, never mind the unknown ones. Either way, perhaps we should be keeping our fingers crossed that this little project works: http://www.iter.org/.

As for wind energy, I've been reading some interesting articles recently about their potential for disrupting the climate if they were ever built on the sort of scale required to replace fossil fuels and, perhaps more worryingly, that our current energy usage may not be too far away from the theoretical limit of the total usable energy from the sun (our only real energy source) - which is arguably a more scary thought since it implies we may be rapidly approaching a real 'brick-wall' as far as renewable energy is concerned.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028063.300-wind-and-wave-farms-could-affect-earths-energy-balance.html
http://www.earthtimes.org/energy/wind-power-limits/699/
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Wind-Power/The-Natural-Limits-of-Wind-Energy.html

 

[Penners]

I was only number 2,871,548,893 when I arrived on the planet, so it's not my fault.

Speaking as human being number 75,007,692,621, I can remember when it was all fields around here and the planet's population was a mere 2,354,297,837.

It's all you bloody more-than-2.5-billioners who've wrecked it all. :evil:

 

[Flyfisher]

:lol:
OK, so it's not your fault either. So who's fault is it then? Come on, hands up. You know who you are!

 

[biffvernon]

Any alternative?
We need practical alternatives, not any alternatives.
...
I find it hard to believe that peak coal is almost upon us when UK known reserves are supposed to be good for many decades, never mind the unknown ones. Either way, perhaps we should be keeping our fingers crossed that this little project works: http://www.iter.org/.

As for wind energy, I've been reading some interesting articles recently about their potential for disrupting the climate...
perhaps more worryingly, that our current energy usage may not be too far away from the theoretical limit of the total usable energy from the sun (our only real energy source) - which is arguably a more scary thought since it implies we may be rapidly approaching a real 'brick-wall' as far as renewable energy is concerned.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028063.300-wind-and-wave-farms-could-affect-earths-energy-balance.html
http://www.earthtimes.org/energy/wind-power-limits/699/
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Wind-Power/The-Natural-Limits-of-Wind-Energy.html

There are no alternatives that you would class as 'practical'. We are going to have to accept the impractical as all there is.
Being hard to believe does not make it untrue. UK known reserves are, er, known, and they are known to be small and mostly not worth exploiting even at today's prices, which are much higher than when the mines were closed. We know there are few unknown reserves because UK geology has been very well surveyed. You'll need more than crossed fingers before ITER works.
Exploiting wind energy has no potential climate disrupting potential. What have you been reading? Oh, Kleiden's article. Did you see the New Scientist addendum:

UPDATE, April 6: This article has elicited a considerable amount of interest, and some criticism. We always welcome discussions of the stories we publish. Some readers felt the original headline (Wind and wave energies are not renewable after all) was misleading, so to address these concerns we have changed it. We have also been made aware of a wider debate about Kleidon's research that we did not address in the original article: we will continue to follow this issue and report back on what we find.

Though of course there is a reminder that we cannot go on using more and more energy, even solar energy.

 

[Flyfisher]

But there are two aspects to 'practical'; one is the sense of something that will work (your "any" alternative perhaps?) and one is the sense that can persuade 7 billion people to change their ways of life or aspirations to live like we're fortunate to be able to do. I see the latter as the biggest challenge.

As for the NS update, yes I've read that, which is why I also posted the earthtimes link to show, in a limited way, how the whole debate is still in very real progress.

The 'reminder' of how close we may be to practically harvestable solar power is something that doesn't loom very large in all the 'green' stuff that I've read before. Perhaps I'm just reading the wrong stuff. Or perhaps it's because it's hard enough to convince the world to stop using fossil fuels without adding that we're within striking distance of hitting the limits of renewable energy, after which there really is no place else to go.

Unless, perhaps, we really can make fusion work (and yes, I'm fully away of the straw-grasping nature of that bet).

 

[biffvernon]

You make fair points. If by some curious magic, we could get fusion or some other yet to be invented technology to work, we would be little better off, perhaps worse off as we liberate the ability to thoroughly mess up the planet. Think for example, that out ability to dig up minerals is constrained by energy. Unlimited energy would lead to unlimited holes in the ground.

In the green movement there is a very strong feeling that the first priority is to live well on less energy. But such ideas don't attract the headlines so much.

 

[worms]

http://www.iter.org/

Thanks for posting that link - I drove past the gate to that place last summer and was wondering what on earth it was!

 

[LadyArowana]

http://www.iter.org/

Thanks for posting that link - I drove past the gate to that place last summer and was wondering what on earth it was!

Outpost of the Klingon Empire too I expect.

 

[Penners]

As for wind energy, I've been reading some interesting articles recently about their potential for disrupting the climate if they were ever built on the sort of scale required to replace fossil fuels and, perhaps more worryingly, that our current energy usage may not be too far away from the theoretical limit of the total usable energy from the sun (our only real energy source) - which is arguably a more scary thought since it implies we may be rapidly approaching a real 'brick-wall' as far as renewable energy is concerned.

It's tempting to think that our "paltry" energy needs could never have sufficient impact on the planet's renewable energy resources - wind, wave, solar - to make any difference to the gargantuan forces involved in planetary climate. But I can remember when, as a boy, I asked my father where all the smoke from factory chimneys went. "Oh, it just blows away," he said. "There's not enough of it to matter."

True story. And that was when the planet's population was roughly half what it is today.

 

[robgil]

Stop having so many kids I say, earth is full.

 

[Flyfisher]

If by some curious magic, we could get fusion or some other yet to be invented technology to work, we would be little better off, perhaps worse off as we liberate the ability to thoroughly mess up the planet.

But then we'd have so much energy that we could build starships and colonise the galaxy. It worked for Captain Kirk and if we're doomed then we might as well dream. :wink:

Think for example, that out ability to dig up minerals is constrained by energy. Unlimited energy would lead to unlimited holes in the ground.

Did you listen to R4's Start The Week today? Some very interesting discussion about Australia's economy side-stepping our current crisis due to its mining operations and talk of having enough coal for hundreds of years and gas for even longer. They also discussed the political unrest caused by the introduction of a carbon tax and the increasing tensions between economists and environmentalists. Regardless of the rights and wrongs, it was an interesting - perhaps depressing - example of the social dimension of the whole problem.

There's a written summary here, plus a listen again link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016kkbg#synopsis

In the green movement there is a very strong feeling that the first priority is to live well on less energy. But such ideas don't attract the headlines so much.

Perhaps because it's not a popular message? Sure, people will happily recycle their rubbish and change to low-energy light bulbs, but try persuading them to go on a cycling holiday in the UK instead of Disneyland or Magaluf . . .

 

[MdB]

It will be interesting to see how long before Nickel makes on to the news as a new energy source. The tech sites have it as about 70% scammer 30% something interesting but there was a big demo a few days ago which supposedly showed good results. The jury is still out as they say but with raised eyebrows...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Catalyzer

 

[Penners]

Turning nickel into copper, eh? Surely it's only a short step from there to turning base metal into gold.

 

[MdB]

Turning nickel into copper, eh? Surely it's only a short step from there to turning base metal into gold.

I hope you haven't seen the news on this... It wasn't base metal some chap was trying to turn into gold...