Author Topic: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...  (Read 70206 times)

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Offline f4eru

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #125 on: August 20, 2018, 08:32:38 am »
Properly used, wood is a reasonable source of heat. It's a renewable resource that is carbon neutral and good seasoned firewood burns pretty clean in a modern sealed wood stove. The nasty smoke often associated with fireplaces is often due to burning green wood, scraps of lumber that are painted or treated, or other random garbage. A lot of people simply don't know any better.
This. Proper insulation, 2-way ventilation, and wood burning efficient modern heating is one obviously top way to go. Works well for me, and energy costs and environment footprint are much reduced compared to electric heat pump based alternatives.

A simple and easy calculation :
- Electric plant burns coal* (Or Uranium for that matter) : 40% efficiency
- Grid : 90% efficient
- Heat pump : 250% efficient (peak is better, but average over the winter is not as good as the advertised 400% peak efficiency)
----> Total : 90% efficiency

vs :
- you burn coal, or gazoil directly at home : 90% efficient as well

So using a heat pump is environmentally roughly equivalent to burning coal or gazoil at home, unfortunately.



* in Europe, using much electricity at the yearly heating peak of the winter is getting a lot of coal based, also in France, which doesn't have the peaking capacity, and imports massively coal based electricity from Deutschland at that period. Also, PV doesn't really bring much at that exact period, else you wouldn't need much heating, when you get sunshine inside big windows, provided you get big windows in a modern building.
 
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Offline Kjelt

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #126 on: August 20, 2018, 10:11:07 am »
Burning wood ?
I was in a hotel in France that burned wood for their heating and showers, they used aprox. one tree per two days.
That tree took 40-60 years to grow.
Do the math. Unless you find trees that grow substantial amounts of wood within a few years it is not a really good alternative.
 
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #127 on: August 20, 2018, 10:26:51 am »
Burning wood ?
I was in a hotel in France that burned wood for their heating and showers, they used aprox. one tree per two days.
That tree took 40-60 years to grow.
Do the math. Unless you find trees that grow substantial amounts of wood within a few years it is not a really good alternative.
Compared to coal that's still pretty good. ;D
 

Online tggzzz

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #128 on: August 20, 2018, 01:16:51 pm »
Burning wood ?
I was in a hotel in France that burned wood for their heating and showers, they used aprox. one tree per two days.
That tree took 40-60 years to grow.
Do the math. Unless you find trees that grow substantial amounts of wood within a few years it is not a really good alternative.

I asked how much wood a grate in a country house used - because I had seen the size of the wood basket. The answer was 0.5tons per day!

The other point is that many cities in the UK are gearing up to ban domestic wood heaters (and/or closely specify what fuel can be burnt in them) due to the particulate pollution they emit. Such pollution from coal fires in the 1940s/50s caused the infamous "pea souper" fogs which killed thousands, and lead to the introduction of "smokeless coal".
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 
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Offline Kjelt

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #129 on: August 20, 2018, 01:26:58 pm »
The other point is that many cities in the UK are gearing up to ban domestic wood heaters (and/or closely specify what fuel can be burnt in them) due to the particulate pollution they emit. Such pollution from coal fires in the 1940s/50s caused the infamous "pea souper" fogs which killed thousands, and lead to the introduction of "smokeless coal".
And I agree fully, I hate the smoke from the fireplaces from the neighbours.
I wonder how many would buy the $4k catalysation system needed to clean the air.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #130 on: August 20, 2018, 03:27:23 pm »
Burning wood ?
I was in a hotel in France that burned wood for their heating and showers, they used aprox. one tree per two days.
That tree took 40-60 years to grow.
Do the math. Unless you find trees that grow substantial amounts of wood within a few years it is not a really good alternative.

How much natural gas does it take to heat a comparable hotel and how long did that take to form?
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #131 on: August 20, 2018, 04:28:19 pm »
How much natural gas does it take to heat a comparable hotel and how long did that take to form?
That is also unsustainable but IMO for new energy sources we should be looking for sustainable energy sources instead of cutting down forests for short term profit and making the planet a desert.
 

Offline helius

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #132 on: August 20, 2018, 04:38:36 pm »
Burning wood ?
I was in a hotel in France that burned wood for their heating and showers, they used aprox. one tree per two days.
That tree took 40-60 years to grow.
Do the math. Unless you find trees that grow substantial amounts of wood within a few years it is not a really good alternative.
Without reference to the size of the woodlot supporting the hotel, there is no "math".
 

Offline james_s

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #133 on: August 20, 2018, 04:57:39 pm »
We don't have to just clearcut forests. Out here trees are farmed, they harvest a section then plant it with new trees, then harvest another section and plant that with new trees, then after a number of cycles of that the first set of newly planted trees is ready to be harvested. There is also a great deal of wood that comes from fallen trees, and trees removed to build something where they were, or removed because they are too close to existing buildings. Old growth lumber is no longer harvested, we have lots and lots of trees out here, they are a renewable resource.
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #134 on: August 20, 2018, 05:30:08 pm »
Sustaining what, a couple of villages or NYC ?
 

Online MarcoTopic starter

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #135 on: August 20, 2018, 06:19:40 pm »
The National Energy Foundation in the UK says you need about a hectare of poplar to be self-sufficient in heating. Taking that number per household you would need about the entire area of the UK to supply wood to heat UK households.

As for renewable, that depends on how much nutrients go up in smoke. Anything not retained in the ashes and which rains down into the ocean is effectively lost on a human timescale.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2018, 06:30:56 pm by Marco »
 

Offline james_s

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #136 on: August 20, 2018, 06:51:23 pm »
That's why you don't put all your eggs in one basket. My wood stove is supplemental heat, I use it to heat the downstairs during the winter and on special occasions like holidays where there is nothing quite like a crackling fire to make for a cozy gathering. I also have a natural gas furnace and electric heat pump, the latter of which is used primarily for summer cooling but I can heat with it when natural gas prices are high.
 

Offline f4eru

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #137 on: August 20, 2018, 09:58:46 pm »
Quote
$4k catalysation system needed to clean the air
What do you want to catalyze?

Offline Galenbo

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #138 on: August 20, 2018, 11:38:32 pm »
:-DD
Everywhere on earth within an hour, yeah right.

I flew yesterday, checkin required to arrive two hours early:
Checkin, luggage checkin, customs, wait, boarding at gate entering plane: 2 hours 15 minutes

Flight took 3 hours 15 minutes

Checkout wait for luggage to arrive, bags, customs, airport:  1 hour

So efficiency 50%  wait time and protocol total three hours, flight time three hours total 6 hours.

Drive 20km to our airport adds 45 minutes, afther the flight get the booked rental car adds another 30 minutes.
If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.
 

Offline Eka

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #139 on: September 24, 2018, 08:17:47 am »
Forget wood for heating. Even when a catalytic converter is used it emits to much pollutants.

Lots of insulation, properly placed windows, with heat pumps are a better solution where heat pumps are viable. Some places are to cold like where I live. Ground sourced heat pumps are the only ones that work here. My place is well enough insulated and has enough solar gain through the windows that it only uses 300 gallons of propane a year for heating, hot water, and clothes drying. Even in the middle of the winter I often find I'm trying to get rid of heat. In a pinch I can fire up a couple gaming computers and heat this place. I need to pour the 2" thick cement slab I planned on for the main floor so it can serve as a heat sink to absorb heat from the sun then radiate it at night. The structure is designed for the weight, I just didn't put in the in the floor hot water heating system like I'd planned on initially. I should install a solar hot water heating system. It can also heat the domestic hot water and eliminate that much more propane use. BTW, daily highs often don't get above freezing in the winter, and two feet of frost will penetrate the ground, though global warming has changed that. I don't think we got more than 6" of frost these past few winters.

Yes, that is IS' and Al quaida's greatest accomplishment: make flying a long and tedious process.


This is something that has bothered me all along. Al Quaida unequivocally won, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams in causing tremendous disruption, fear, and an overall great reduction in our personal freedoms. The few thousand people killed on 9/11 were but a drop in the proverbial bucket. The buildings and airplanes can be replaced, the economic cost directly from the attack was minimal in the grand scheme of things.

The freedom is gone forever, the disruption and inconvenience will have lasting costs through the foreseeable future, the changes referred to as the "post-9/11 world" are permanent and the costs of the resulting wars in both money and lives absolutely dwarfs the attack. Yet people seem completely blind to this and absolutely oblivious to the fact that the only effective fight against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized and continue on with life as usual. Ignore the bully and eventually they will give up, because a fight is precisely what they want.
Many years before the second World Trade Center attack, Osama bin Laden said he wanted to turn the west into police states like much of the Middle East were.

Just think about what those wars did for the price of oil? Lots of big profits were made. Oil prices getting low, stir up the middle east some more and ratchet up the fear. Can't ever properly solve the middle east issues because that would allow oil prices to stabilize and lower, and then the profits from oil speculation become harder to come by. Lots of profits in the military hardware sales the fear generates. Let's not forget the mercenaries too. Yet another market for them to serve. Bush II was a disaster for the stability of this world. Where Clinton reacted calmly to a big terrorist attack on US soil, Bush II fanned the flames of fear. Of course that helped him and his backers make money off of it. Reagan, and Bush I also did their damage by undoing Carter's alternative energy research, and carbon fuel use reduction initiatives. Reagan, Bush I and Bush II were big oil controlled presidencies. The Bush family having made their fortunes from oil. Also many in their cabinets had significant oil industry ties. We are easily 30 years behind in carbon use reduction because of them.
 
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Offline MT

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #140 on: September 26, 2018, 12:59:37 am »
BTW, daily highs often don't get above freezing in the winter, and two feet of frost will penetrate the ground, though global warming has changed that. I don't think we got more than 6" of frost these past few winters.
Global warming caused my lawn to be deep freezed well beyond 1m last 4 seasons and almost 1.5m of snow and cold as hell for weeks! Season 5 it rained at Christmas!


« Last Edit: September 26, 2018, 01:04:20 am by MT »
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #141 on: September 26, 2018, 06:32:18 am »
Global warming caused my lawn to be deep freezed well beyond 1m last 4 seasons and almost 1.5m of snow and cold as hell for weeks! Season 5 it rained at Christmas!

Conspiracy theorists love to use this silly argument, but really "global warming" would more correctly be called "global climate shift". The average temperature of the earth is indeed rising, the polar ice is melting and sea levels are rising, this is well documented and easily measured. The fact that the temperature in your tiny little corner of the earth has been lower recently says nothing to contradict this. It is only a data point that conveniently supports your existing confirmation bias.

 
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Offline nctnico

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #142 on: September 26, 2018, 01:55:02 pm »
Global warming caused my lawn to be deep freezed well beyond 1m last 4 seasons and almost 1.5m of snow and cold as hell for weeks! Season 5 it rained at Christmas!
Conspiracy theorists love to use this silly argument, but really "global warming" would more correctly be called "global climate shift". The average temperature of the earth is indeed rising, the polar ice is melting and sea levels are rising, this is well documented and easily measured. The fact that the temperature in your tiny little corner of the earth has been lower recently says nothing to contradict this. It is only a data point that conveniently supports your existing confirmation bias.
It is only a single data point but I have noticed that last summer we had a lot of wind from the North. Which is nice because it was not so hot and humid as a 'regular' summer (with wind from other directions) but it seems to be an effect due to the ice melting causing wind patterns to shift.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline IanMacdonald

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #143 on: September 26, 2018, 04:11:20 pm »
Conspiracy theorists love to use this silly argument, but really "global warming" would more correctly be called "global climate shift". The average temperature of the earth is indeed rising, the polar ice is melting and sea levels are rising, this is well documented and easily measured. The fact that the temperature in your tiny little corner of the earth has been lower recently says nothing to contradict this. It is only a data point that conveniently supports your existing confirmation bias.

The reverse is true. Too many people assume that the alarmists must be telling the truth.

Since the 2016 El Nino, global temperature has been falling. It is now almost back to the 2000-2014 plateau level.
The rapid warming in the 20thC started in 1910, which is over 30 years before the rapid increase in CO2 emissions started.
The greenhouse effect of CO2 is well-established science, and the standard equations say that it cannot do what the alarmists predict.
(The alarmist predictions are based on computer models which have no basis in classical physics.)
Sea levels are indeed rising, but at less than 3mm per year. Meanwhile, UK tides are a thousand times larger, twice daily.
Also, sea levels cannot rise more in one place than in another.  If that seems to be the case, as in the oft-quoted maldives, then another mechanism is the cause of land flooding. Which indeed it is, tectonic plate movements being the cause.
Oceans are not acid, they are alkaline. A (tiny) reduction in alkalinity is not acidification.
Arctic ice - This year's minimum is now passed, and it ain't no record. 
Polar bears are doing quite well, thank you.

That's the supposed problem. Now for the proposed fix:

Expenditure on renewables is about half a trillion a year.  We've been installing them for over 20 years. All we have to show for that, is 2% of world energy, or 8% of electricity. Go figure how long achieving '100% renewables' will actually take at that rate, and how much it will cost. Now ask yourself, even if climate change is a serious problem, is this going to solve anything?

Eagles and other hawks are not doing so well. The Greens try to blame this on landowners setting poison, but it is equally possible that wind turbines are the cause. Everywhere with massed windfarms has very expensive electricity.

The Greens claim that energy storage will overcome the intermittency of renewables, but they might as well claim that flux capacitors will make time travel a cinch.  (Neither have been invented yet, and there is no certainty that either is even possible to invent.)

The UK intends to spend over a billion on the smart meter rollout. Which has been made necessary because of the shortfall in the predicted windfarm output. Another crazy waste of money that could be put towards better solutions.

In fact, every time a limitation of renewables is pointed out, there's always an 'Ah, but..' excuse.  :horse:

Even if you still think climate change is a serious problem, would we not be better trying other low-carbon energy solutions? LFTR is one which suggests itself. The cost of doing so would be peanuts by comparison to the money being wasted on wind turbines. Say $25 billion for a test reactor. Compared to twenty times that a year on birdchoppers.

 
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Offline james_s

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #144 on: September 26, 2018, 08:33:36 pm »
Oh there are "believers" on both sides of the fence, that's for sure. People whose belief is based on pure emotion rather than rational thought or data.

My own thought is that looking at the more alarmist data suggests that catastrophic effects are inevitable anyway at this point so there is little we could do now to change the course. I also think that to some degree the fossil fuel problem will solve itself, these fuels will become scarce leading to dramatic price increases making them no longer viable to use as fuel. Unfortunately with that is likely to come more wars over resources, the wars themselves consuming vast quantities of the very resources they are fought over.

Either way I would prefer a gradual shift away from fossil fuels where possible, leaving them for the applications where there is no viable alternative. We're not likely for example to see electric jumbo jets any time soon, and there are a vast range of uses for oil that do not involve burning it as fuel. Most plastic, foam, paint, adhesive, lubrication and other products come from oil, and the more oil we burn up, the less is left for other things and the higher the price. Regardless of current viability, I would like to see development of as many different energy sources as possible. Diversity is the best defense against any sort of catastrophic event. Solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, nuclear, combustion, we can leverage them all, reducing the dependance on any one resource.
 

Offline IanMacdonald

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #145 on: September 26, 2018, 09:07:50 pm »
Well, we can agree to differ on climate change, but also to agree that oil is an incredibly useful substance and that we need to leave some for future generations. That's why I think we should put more effort into advanced nuclear engineering. We know that safer and less polluting forms of nuclear energy are possible, and may not even be all that difficult to engineer. The factors holding us back on this are the inertia of the financial backers, who want to only build tried and tested (but unsafe and polluting) designs like the PWR.  Also, the religion-like obsession of the Greens with wind energy, in spite of its self-evident limitations.

As said we'd only need to divert a small part of the money stream out of these massive enterprises to test out a LFTR, and I think once we had one working that would be the turning point and the money would start flowing into that sector, bigtime. Once accomplished, market forces will do the rest and LFTR becomes the world standard power source, except perhaps for regions with ample hydro or geothermal resources. 

 

Offline nctnico

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #146 on: September 26, 2018, 09:17:02 pm »
Well, we can agree to differ on climate change, but also to agree that oil is an incredibly useful substance and that we need to leave some for future generations. That's why I think we should put more effort into advanced nuclear engineering. We know that safer and less polluting forms of nuclear energy are possible, and may not even be all that difficult to engineer. The factors holding us back on this are the inertia of the financial backers, who want to only build tried and tested (but unsafe and polluting) designs like the PWR.  Also, the religion-like obsession of the Greens with wind energy, in spite of its self-evident limitations.

As said we'd only need to divert a small part of the money stream out of these massive enterprises to test out a LFTR, and I think once we had one working that would be the turning point and the money would start flowing into that sector, bigtime. Once accomplished, market forces will do the rest and LFTR becomes the world standard power source, except perhaps for regions with ample hydro or geothermal resources.
I agree that using as much renewable energy as possible is a good idea either way because fossil fuels are running out. It wouldn't surprise me that governments use climate change as a sales pitch. Nuclear is a good option but LFTR is still 30 to 40 years away from commercial deployment so we have to do with the good old Uranium reactors until then. Maybe they figure out nuclear fusion before they get LFTR up & running because LFTR has some serious challenges to overcome.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline f4eru

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #147 on: September 28, 2018, 04:58:28 pm »
Nuclear is a good option but LFTR is still 30 to 40 years away from commercial deployment
Nuclear is a very dirty and unsustainable option.
Also, 30-40 Years away  translates as "not feasible with current technology" :
https://www.xkcd.com/678/
"It has not been conclusively proven impossible" -> Only 25 Years

Offline mtdoc

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #148 on: September 28, 2018, 07:04:35 pm »
Nuclear is a good option but LFTR is still 30 to 40 years away from commercial deployment
Nuclear is a very dirty and unsustainable option.
Also, 30-40 Years away  translates as "not feasible with current technology" :
https://www.xkcd.com/678/
"It has not been conclusively proven impossible" -> Only 25 Years

Yes. Engineers like to talk about nuclear because on paper, it is very enticing.  But in reality, the economic and political hurdles are too great - in part due to safety and long term toxicity issues.  Because of this it is gradually fading out in the West.  In the developed West, there are and will be efforts to replace aging reactors but they are not moving fast enough to fully replace lost generating capacity. Nuclear has become a smaller portion of the total energy mix pie and this will continue - (even if total world Nuclear capacity increases due to growth in China.)

See 2018 BP Energy Outlook and page 41 of 2018 BP Statistical Review of World Energy

« Last Edit: September 28, 2018, 08:07:45 pm by mtdoc »
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: My country is going to commit economic suicide ...
« Reply #149 on: September 28, 2018, 07:14:39 pm »
Yes. Engineers like to talk about nuclear because on paper, it is very enticing.  But in reality, the economic and political hurdles are too great - in part due to safety and long term toxicity issues.  Because of this it is gradually fading out in the West.
But it isn't. BP is simply wrong. Currently new nuclear power plants are being build across the world. In the UK alone they have planned 10 new nuclear power plants.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 


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