The Environment

[analog]

Too bad fusion is still a pipe dream, though. In theory, it ought to work in practice, but in practice...

Something will happen in Fusion I believe, soon.
There exists a commercial device called the "Fusor" that produces neutrons by colliding deuterium atoms in high vacuum in intense electric fields. They call it "Electrostatic Confinement". The tabletop device device can produce a neutron stream that'll make medical isotopes, this without a fission reactor. Chrysler used to manufacture them under name "FusorStar". It's a pretty safe bet that tabletop fusion has been around since the 1960's. Nobody's yet got practical work out of it, as with Hero's steam engine.

http://rhull.home.infionline.net/highenergy002.htm is a basement fusion enthusiast's site,



and here's a MSNBC story on experiments at UCLA: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7654627/

Where's Thomas Edison when we need him?

[barfle]

Cheap, simple, can be built in a basement. Cool. Too bad it doesn't produce useful amounts of energy. But I've been surprised before, so maybe I'll be surprised again.


About your Edison remark, I noted earlier today that nearly all of his inventions have been rendered obsolete by newer technology. The only one of his patents that is still in widespread use is the incandescent light bulb, and LEDs are making inroads into that. I suspect in ten years or so that it will be fairly difficult to find a filament bulb for sale in stores. There will be a few special purpose ones, but that dear old 60W thing that's shining over my head right now will go the way of the ticker tape and DC central power.

[Haggis@wk]

It appears that trees are, well, growing like trees.

From the BBC

"When the technique was applied to data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) Global Forest Assessment report, the researchers found that forest stocks had actually expanded over the past 15 years in 22 of the world's 50 most forested nations."

[piqaboo]

Nice map.
Clearly shows that making an effort makes a difference.
Industrialized nations with active programs to plant more trees are succeeding in increasing total trees.
Nations on the rise are deforesting not replanting.

San Diggy has guidelines for how many trees per sqfoot there must be in new parking lots etc. Makes for nicer views, cooler parking etc. Probably annoys heck out of developers. Helps make that nice green color in the US portion of the map.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Of course, many of those Sandy Eggo trees require irrigation. Our natural ground cover is grass, scrub, weeds, and a few trees down in what we use for riverbeds.

The trees that grow here without additional water are mostly fire-hazards. :worry:

[piqaboo]

Oh yeah, we irrigate. Our $cost for water is thought to help our cooling /heating costs for the buildings. but that doesnt supply the actual water....

[Haggis@wk]

The Guardian

” The city of Los Angeles is principally famous for two things: glittering movies and suffocating smog. Now researchers have found that the two are not unconnected. A study by the University of California Los Angeles shows the film and television industry to be the second largest polluter in the Los Angeles area. Only the region's oil refineries pump more pollutants into the air, it says.”

Ya know you can’t make this stuff up.

[Haggis@wk]

Inconvenient truth for pro-Kyoto crowd

” Two percent.

That's how much of the world's man-made CO2 Canada produces. Most Canadians don't know that. We are, as the saying goes, the proverbial "drop in the bucket."

So, now that you know the truth, consider this: What would happen if Canada were never to produce another man-made CO2 molecule ever again?

If every man, woman and child never exhaled again and therefore never produced anymore hated CO2, what would be the effect?

What would happen if all Canadians just disappeared and therefore all that hated machinery and technology that makes survival through a Canadian winter possible, just sat idle? No cars driving around, no need to heat homes or turn on lights. No more plants and factories. What would the effect on the global climate be?

Absolutely nothing at all.”

I wasn't aware that CO2 only makes up 4% of the atmosphere; to hear Gore go on about it we should be wallowing in the stuff!

[Shapley]

Actually, the 4% figure is way high, according to this site: Atmospheric Composition

It is more like .035%. According to this site, carbon dioxide concentration has increased 25% in the past 300 years, meaning that has risen from about .03% to its present level, assuming the other gas levels have remained constant.

But they haven't. During this time of rising CO2 levels, methane has risen 150%, meaning that it has risen from somewhere around .0001% to its present, alarming, level of .0002%.

I wonder how long it has been that we've even been able to measure .0002% accurately?

[analog]

Actually, the 4% figure is way high, according to this site: Atmospheric Composition

It is more like .035%.

If you like graphs, here's what they measured at the CO2 observatory on Mauna Loa since 1958.



There's a better graph here but I don't know how to paste a PDF.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphi ... rudc04.pdf
"The Mauna Loa record shows a 19.4% increase in the mean annual concentration, from 315.98 parts per million by volume (ppmv) of dry air in 1959 to 377.38 ppmv in 2004."

That'd be .037738 percent. Remember they've used the same instruments since 1958 so we're talking slide rule accuracy here, call it .038.......

Observe the steep slope of the seasonal cycles. That's good old photosynthesis. Mother Nature still has the upper hand.

[Haggis@wk]

Scientists: Pollution could combat global warming

Anyone else think the nuts have come full circle?

” NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Air pollution may be just the thing to fight global warming, some scientists say.

Prominent scientists, among them a Nobel laureate, said a layer of pollution deliberately spewed into the atmosphere could act as a "shade" from the sun's rays and help cool the planet.

Reaction to the proposal here at the annual U.N. conference on climate change is a mix of caution, curiosity and some resignation to such "massive and drastic" operations, as the chief U.N. climatologist describes them.

The Nobel Prize-winning scientist who first made the proposal is himself "not enthusiastic about it."

"It was meant to startle the policymakers," said Paul J. Crutzen, of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. "If they don't take action much more strongly than they have in the past, then in the end we have to do experiments like this."

Serious people are taking Crutzen's idea seriously. This weekend at Moffett Field, California, NASA's Ames Research Center hosts a closed-door, high-level workshop on the global haze proposal and other "geoengineering" ideas for fending off climate change."

So what are the environmentalists to do now? Do they save the earth from global warming by encouraging pollution or do they save the earth from pollution and cause more global warming?

Man I never knew how tough it was to be an enviromentalist

[dai bread]

There are certain words that should be struck from the journalist's dictionary: could, should, may and might.

They're all used to publicise academic & axe-grinders' flim-flam. Our press will happily publish anything put out on letterhead.

[Haggis@wk]

Wind Power Cards

GAWD! I love being an American! There is nothing so noble that someone won’t figure out a scam for!!!

Well at least it can double as a fridge magnet.

“Honey, where are the ticket for the monster truck rally???”

“On the fridge under the wind power magnet!”

[dai bread]

Just to keep you all up with the play, the vanguard of the icebergs drifting up the east coast of the South Island has now reached the latitude of Timaru, about half-way up the island. The bergs are about 60km off shore.

There's been nothing like this since 1931. If any of them make the latitude of Christchurch, it will be a record. The 1km monster (alright, Canadians, the 1km little fella) may well get there.

Nobody expects the bergs to visible from the North Island though.

[piqaboo]

Wind Power Cards

That's hilarious! The producers are getting paid twice - once when you buy the card, and once when you use the power.
& of course the card funds more than one middle man!

[jamiebk]

What a scam!

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

:wondering: Is there anybody out there who's really so stupid that they think paying money for a piece of plastic or cardstock actually changes the climate?

[piqaboo]

Yes. There are folks who will think they are making a sacrifice - that by paying for the petrochemical card, they are forcing the evil electricity producers to allow the wind-generators to sell their power, and that the wind power wont be generated unless the card is sold.

Most probably, purchase of the card helps the wind-generators defray the costs of installation and maintenance, so that they can sell their power for the same prices as the burners, and still make a profit.

BTW we noticed new propellors on the way out I-8 last weekend.
Biiiiiiiiiig muthahs they are.

[dai bread]

Our icebergs are still around. Someone took a sheep out to one and sheared it there. With hand shears. He didn't bother with a generator.

[piqaboo]

Puir cold sheep!

It must be odd to go sailing in sight of icebergs. How are your volcanos doing?