This thread has turned , having the left the tracks of this forum and the policy set forth.
Time to move on.
Boyd The last statistic that I heard is the the US uses 25% of the worlds energy resources but at the same time makes 25% of the worlds products and services. I think the US is also usually #1 or #2 in how efficient we use those resources compared to other industrialized countries. No US citizen should feel guilty for those statistics.
The last statistic that I heard is the the US uses 25% of the worlds energy resources but at the same time makes 25% of the worlds products and services. I think the US is also usually #1 or #2 in how efficient we use those resources compared to other industrialized countries. No US citizen should feel guilty for those statistics.
That is declining every year as countries such as India and China (a combined population of 3.5 billion, more than ten times ours) industrialize, China has already passed us in total output and India is close to doing so. We can't live in the past.
Bucyrus It is difficult to assimilate that paragraph of statistics because they are woven in with so many clauses and qualifiers.
It is difficult to assimilate that paragraph of statistics because they are woven in with so many clauses and qualifiers.
It turns out I was far too conservative in my initial estimate. There is a complete graph of all of our greenhouse gas emissions on page 4, it won't paste right here but it shows a total CO2 emissions of 5,706.4 million metric tons for the US, of that transportation is1,745.5mmt, or around 30% . Of that 1,745mmt, 62% is passenger cars (as it says in the summary ), or 1,081mmt. Now, the current MPG of cars in the US is about 24. The 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV is tops in fuel efficiency at 99 mpg. So, contrary to your statement that it "wouldn't make a dent", if all US cars were the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, and all thus got 99 mpg, the total amount of greenhouse gases produced by passenger cars would be reduced by 74%, or 799.94mmt, which is a 14% reduction in total US greenhouse gas emissions "by replacing pickups with little eco cars."
Bucyrus dakotafred: DwightBranch: ... coal fired power plants are the past, and railroads should be ready for that. And, nuclear also being off the table, the future is ... ? (And please don't tell me we're going to make up the difference with wind.) The difference will be made up with massive conservation. Smart meters, smart grid, and smart appliances, coupled with conservation pricing (price rationing) will do the trick. This is ultimately the national energy policy today. How many times have you heard that Americans use too much of the world's energy? The conservation policy is easy to implement simply by reducing supply.
dakotafred: DwightBranch: ... coal fired power plants are the past, and railroads should be ready for that. And, nuclear also being off the table, the future is ... ? (And please don't tell me we're going to make up the difference with wind.)
DwightBranch: ... coal fired power plants are the past, and railroads should be ready for that.
... coal fired power plants are the past, and railroads should be ready for that.
And, nuclear also being off the table, the future is ... ? (And please don't tell me we're going to make up the difference with wind.)
The difference will be made up with massive conservation. Smart meters, smart grid, and smart appliances, coupled with conservation pricing (price rationing) will do the trick.
This is ultimately the national energy policy today. How many times have you heard that Americans use too much of the world's energy?
The conservation policy is easy to implement simply by reducing supply.
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
blownout cylinder http://blog.iseesystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/MarcusFinalPaper.pdf One final note: most of the climate change community, steered by Kyoto and IPCC, limit the scope of their consideration to the year 2100. By setting up the problem in this way, the calculation of a safe CO2 emission goes up by about 40%, because it takes about a century for the climate to fully respond to rising CO2. If CO2 emission continues up to the year 2100, then the warming in the year 2100 would only be about 60% of the “committed warming” from the CO2 concentration in 2100. This calculation seems rather callous, almost sneaky, given the inevitability of warming once the CO2 is released. I suspect that many in the community are not aware of this sneaky implication of restricting our attention to a relatively short time horizon. Taken from....http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/how-much-co2-emission-is-too-much/ Since it takes approximately 100 years to fully respond to the CO2 it might be worth our while to ask over what period of time do we have to do this? Are we talking about a sudden cut in CO2 or a more nuanced series of cuts?
http://blog.iseesystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/MarcusFinalPaper.pdf
One final note: most of the climate change community, steered by Kyoto and IPCC, limit the scope of their consideration to the year 2100. By setting up the problem in this way, the calculation of a safe CO2 emission goes up by about 40%, because it takes about a century for the climate to fully respond to rising CO2. If CO2 emission continues up to the year 2100, then the warming in the year 2100 would only be about 60% of the “committed warming” from the CO2 concentration in 2100. This calculation seems rather callous, almost sneaky, given the inevitability of warming once the CO2 is released. I suspect that many in the community are not aware of this sneaky implication of restricting our attention to a relatively short time horizon.
Taken from....http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/how-much-co2-emission-is-too-much/
Since it takes approximately 100 years to fully respond to the CO2 it might be worth our while to ask over what period of time do we have to do this?
Are we talking about a sudden cut in CO2 or a more nuanced series of cuts?
By Marcus Robinson Wilson High School
This is your source? And a climate change denial site? Unless it is peer reviewed it isn't science.
This article by Bill McKibben is long (and excuse where it is published) but it provides a nice overview and some recent updates in the picture, especially the dangers of releasing more sequestered carbon.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
DwightBranch Change any of those factors (especially the "Light-duty vehicles") and one could lower total Greenhouse gas emissions by around 5%.
Change any of those factors (especially the "Light-duty vehicles") and one could lower total Greenhouse gas emissions by around 5%.
Well maybe the dent can actually be measured, but it is still only a dent. It is difficult to assimilate that paragraph of statistics because they are woven in with so many clauses and qualifiers.
But in your last sentence, when you say "change any of those factors," what exactly are you changing regarding light-duty-vehicles that cuts greenhouse gas emissions by around 5%?
And here is a question? how much must we cut greenhouse gas emissions from today's level in order to end the climate change problem? I just need a percentage.
Bucyrus Giving up pickup trucks and driving little eco cars will not even make a measurable dent in the problem.
Giving up pickup trucks and driving little eco cars will not even make a measurable dent in the problem.
Totally wrong, around 1/5 of of US greenhouse gas emissions are from vehicles:
Transportation activities (excluding international bunker fuels) accounted for 32 percent of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in 2010.14 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. The remaining emissions came from other transportation activities, including the combustion of diesel fuel in heavy-duty vehicles and jet fuel in aircraft. From 1990 to 2010, transportation emissions rose by 18 percent due, in large part, to increased demand for travel and the stagnation of fuel efficiency across the U.S. vehicle fleet. The number of vehicle miles traveled by light-duty motor vehicles (passenger cars and light-duty trucks) increased 34 percent from 1990 to 2010, as a result of a confluence of factors including population growth, economic growth, urban sprawl, and low fuel prices over much of this period.
My paraphrase was: "I'd run tell mommy on you if your status weren't already evident" in reference to Branch, who found your insult offensive. That is an accurate reading of what you said. I wouldn't report you simply because your posts are ludicrous.
DwightBranch Bucyrus: DwightBranch: Tariffs have a much more nuanced effect on an economy than you would make them out to be. In the case of agriculture it will actually help the Europeans because they will be able to cut their price supports while maintaining a price at which French, German etc. farmers can compete. Anyone who thinks that tariffs are always a loss for an economy had better not look very closely at Taiwan or South Korea. Say an eco tariff prices their imports from us out of their market. So they substitute to another source of imports, but at a higher price than what we had been charging them before the eco tariff. If that higher priced import is an economic advantage to them, as you suggest in your nuanced explanation, then why would they have not just gone ahead and raised their import cost already by adding their own tarriff in order to reap that economic benefit that you cite in your nuanced explanation? In the same way American greenhouse gas production is considered unacceptable to Europeans. Will halting the import of things from the US, using those objectionable methods, likely increase prices in Europe? Undoubtedly. But they will say that it only puts the price back where it should be if one uses socially acceptable methods of production, and that willingness to destroy the environment everyone shares cannot be a competitive advantage.
Bucyrus: DwightBranch: Tariffs have a much more nuanced effect on an economy than you would make them out to be. In the case of agriculture it will actually help the Europeans because they will be able to cut their price supports while maintaining a price at which French, German etc. farmers can compete. Anyone who thinks that tariffs are always a loss for an economy had better not look very closely at Taiwan or South Korea. Say an eco tariff prices their imports from us out of their market. So they substitute to another source of imports, but at a higher price than what we had been charging them before the eco tariff. If that higher priced import is an economic advantage to them, as you suggest in your nuanced explanation, then why would they have not just gone ahead and raised their import cost already by adding their own tarriff in order to reap that economic benefit that you cite in your nuanced explanation?
DwightBranch: Tariffs have a much more nuanced effect on an economy than you would make them out to be. In the case of agriculture it will actually help the Europeans because they will be able to cut their price supports while maintaining a price at which French, German etc. farmers can compete. Anyone who thinks that tariffs are always a loss for an economy had better not look very closely at Taiwan or South Korea.
If that higher priced import is an economic advantage to them, as you suggest in your nuanced explanation, then why would they have not just gone ahead and raised their import cost already by adding their own tarriff in order to reap that economic benefit that you cite in your nuanced explanation?
In the same way American greenhouse gas production is considered unacceptable to Europeans. Will halting the import of things from the US, using those objectionable methods, likely increase prices in Europe? Undoubtedly. But they will say that it only puts the price back where it should be if one uses socially acceptable methods of production, and that willingness to destroy the environment everyone shares cannot be a competitive advantage.
It sounds like you are changing your nuanced explanation from our trading partners benefiting from the ripple cost increase due to eco tariffs on their imports from us; to them not benefiting, but willing to pay the higher price for the environmental cause.
Your point about socially acceptable methods of production requires accepting the stark terms of your premise, which is that we either do all this redistribution or draconian cuts in consumption and manufacturing; or we destroy the environment. I don’t buy that premise.
You cite the example of Americans pettily refusing to give up driving pickup trucks as basic transportation as an example of unreasonable belligerence of the American people in refusing to face the climate problem you believe in. I would say that the actual remedy to the problem, as the advocates themselves have quantified it, would require far more sacrifice than even the advocates would be willing to give. Giving up pickup trucks and driving little eco cars will not even make a measurable dent in the problem.
But at lease we have broadened the discussion here to include all of the reasons for the decline of coal.
I hate to prolong this childish stuff, but Schlimm : You are a careless reader, I know, from past experience; but please reread the foregoing and discover who "ran to Mommy."
Frankly Fred, i find your childish disregard for factual information sufficient to find it hard to take anything else you say seriously. And your "I'd run tell mommy on you if your status weren't already evident" response on your kertuffle and insult directed at Branch is equally childish. You can go on sitting out in the Dakotas in denial of what almost all climatologists recognize as a crisis if you wish, but your opinion has little weight since it displays a willful ignorance.
Rather, Beijing. We can handle desertification, droughts,water shortages,dustbowls and crop failures because we have so much arable land relative to our populations. China is feeding four times (likely to be 5 times if the one child policy is loosened) the population of the United States with about the same amount of arable land.
American railways are innovative and far more eco-friendly than their trucking counterparts. If anything, I think we're going to see a lot more city-city fast inter modal traffic with trucks taking the last 50 miles. Far fewer powder river coal basin lines though.
Bucyrus DwightBranch: Tariffs have a much more nuanced effect on an economy than you would make them out to be. In the case of agriculture it will actually help the Europeans because they will be able to cut their price supports while maintaining a price at which French, German etc. farmers can compete. Anyone who thinks that tariffs are always a loss for an economy had better not look very closely at Taiwan or South Korea. Say an eco tariff prices their imports from us out of their market. So they substitute to another source of imports, but at a higher price than what we had been charging them before the eco tariff. If that higher priced import is an economic advantage to them, as you suggest in your nuanced explanation, then why would they have not just gone ahead and raised their import cost already by adding their own tarriff in order to reap that economic benefit that you cite in your nuanced explanation?
What is for sale? Should we allow everything to be bought and sold at its "natural" price, that is, the price it would be if anything were bought and sold on the market without any governmental, that is to say, social interference? That is the question. To use a very real debate that took place a few years ago, in China it is considered acceptable to transplant human organs harvested from condemned prisoners that have been executed. If we were to accept the transplantation of human organs from executed prisoners it would likely lower the cost of our health care system, we could just import kidneys from China very cheaply and not pay for dialysis. But we find that objectionable, and do not allow that practice. Furthermore, in the US one must currently queue up in a line to get an organ transplant, regardless of wealth. Should organs be sold like everything else, so that a wealthy person could cut in line for a kidney? That would be a totally free trading system, but we consider that to be unacceptable. In the same way American greenhouse gas production is considered unacceptable to Europeans. Will halting the import of things from the US, using those objectionable methods, likely increase prices in Europe? Undoubtedly. But they will say that it only puts the price back where it should be if one uses socially acceptable methods of production, and that willingness to destroy the environment everyone shares cannot be a competitive advantage.
Do you suppose that, as soon as someone wakes up in Hamburg this morning, we're history?
[quote user="DwightBranch]
This is offensive, and I have reported you to the moderators.
[/quote]
And you are a crybaby -- and I would report you, if your status were not already self-evident.
DwightBranchTariffs have a much more nuanced effect on an economy than you would make them out to be. In the case of agriculture it will actually help the Europeans because they will be able to cut their price supports while maintaining a price at which French, German etc. farmers can compete. Anyone who thinks that tariffs are always a loss for an economy had better not look very closely at Taiwan or South Korea.
Say an eco tariff prices their imports from us out of their market. So they substitute to another source of imports, but at a higher price than what we had been charging them before the eco tariff.
Bucyrus DwightBranch: Bucyrus:Most US trade is with developed countries, and the Europeans, especially the Germans, take climate change seriously. Well aren't those developed countries going to get kind of a double whammy when they make big sacrifices in their own standard of living, and then have to pay more for their imports because we won't make sacrifices in ours?
DwightBranch: Bucyrus:Most US trade is with developed countries, and the Europeans, especially the Germans, take climate change seriously.
Bucyrus:Most US trade is with developed countries, and the Europeans, especially the Germans, take climate change seriously.
Well aren't those developed countries going to get kind of a double whammy when they make big sacrifices in their own standard of living, and then have to pay more for their imports because we won't make sacrifices in ours?
Tariffs have a much more nuanced effect on an economy than you would make them out to be. In the case of agriculture it will actually help the Europeans because they will be able to cut their price supports while maintaining a price at which French, German etc. farmers can compete. Anyone who thinks that tariffs are always a loss for an economy had better not look very closely at Taiwan or South Korea.
On your point about whether European citizens would be willing to pay more for their "stuff" in order to protect the environment, I can't speak for them but my guess is yes. They are willing to pay much more for food than if they let their own farmers go out of business (so are the Japanese), and as I said they are much more concerned about global warming than Americans, so I can definitely see a willingness to sacrifice lower prices for a social cause..
DwightBranch Bucyrus:Most US trade is with developed countries, and the Europeans, especially the Germans, take climate change seriously.
Bucyrus DwightBranch: I don't think you understand that we will not have a choice. Right now 16% of our GDP is derived from exports. What happens if we stomp our feet and say "you can't make me give up my 4WD pickup as a passenger car"? The rest of the world slaps our exports with ecotariffs severe enough that our exports are uncompetitive. So if those countries put an eco tariff on our exports to their country, it would price our goods out of their market. Do you think their citizens would just accept the higher cost goods that would be substituted for ours after the eco tariff makes ours too costly for them? Can the poor countries really afford to pay more just because they place a tariff on our products?
DwightBranch: I don't think you understand that we will not have a choice. Right now 16% of our GDP is derived from exports. What happens if we stomp our feet and say "you can't make me give up my 4WD pickup as a passenger car"? The rest of the world slaps our exports with ecotariffs severe enough that our exports are uncompetitive.
So if those countries put an eco tariff on our exports to their country, it would price our goods out of their market. Do you think their citizens would just accept the higher cost goods that would be substituted for ours after the eco tariff makes ours too costly for them?
Can the poor countries really afford to pay more just because they place a tariff on our products?
Most US trade is with developed countries, and the Europeans, especially the Germans, take climate change seriously.
dakotafred Dwight: 'Fairest" -- how? The U.S. works more, harder and smarter, requiring more inputs. How is it 'fair' to punish us by restricting our inputs -- so we can work less, less hard and dumber? Whom does this benefit? Certainly not ourselves -- nor the rest of the world, either, I would think. You area 'professional' -- but can you give a good argument why you should be paid more than a 17-year-old working at McDonald's? If so, you might be able to see why the U.S. needs more inputs -- and puts them to pretty good use. This is offensive, and I have reported you to the moderators.
Dwight: 'Fairest" -- how?
The U.S. works more, harder and smarter, requiring more inputs. How is it 'fair' to punish us by restricting our inputs -- so we can work less, less hard and dumber? Whom does this benefit? Certainly not ourselves -- nor the rest of the world, either, I would think.
You area 'professional' -- but can you give a good argument why you should be paid more than a 17-year-old working at McDonald's? If so, you might be able to see why the U.S. needs more inputs -- and puts them to pretty good use.
DwightBranchI don't think you understand that we will not have a choice. Right now 16% of our GDP is derived from exports. What happens if we stomp our feet and say "you can't make me give up my 4WD pickup as a passenger car"? The rest of the world slaps our exports with ecotariffs severe enough that our exports are uncompetitive.
You are a 'professional' -- but can you give a good argument why you should be paid more than a 17-year-old working at McDonald's? If so, you might be able to see why the U.S. needs more inputs -- and puts them to pretty good use.
Bucyrus DwightBranch: When the US is is finally forced, kicking and screaming, to sign a treaty limiting its greenhouse gas emissions (likely in response to the demands for ecotariffs on the US by Europeans that would cost roughly the same) the US will likely be limited to producing 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, because we are 5% of the world's population. The U.S. emits disproportionately more CO2 than many other lesser-developed countries because it has a lager manufacturing base and a higher standard of living. If you force the world to redistribute the right to emit CO2 on the basis of population, there can only be two results. One is that the U.S. pays what amounts to a gigantic fine for continuing its standard of living and manufacturing. That other is that the U.S. will not pay the fine, and so the U.S. standard of living and manufacturing base will have to fall to reach parity with the rest of the world’s countries. It always strikes me as such a happy little coincidence that the remedy for MMGW just so happens to require the U.S. giving its wealth away to the lesser-developed countries until we all have the same amount.
DwightBranch: When the US is is finally forced, kicking and screaming, to sign a treaty limiting its greenhouse gas emissions (likely in response to the demands for ecotariffs on the US by Europeans that would cost roughly the same) the US will likely be limited to producing 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, because we are 5% of the world's population.
It always strikes me as such a happy little coincidence that the remedy for MMGW just so happens to require the U.S. giving its wealth away to the lesser-developed countries until we all have the same amount.
It strikes them as a happy little coincidence that our plan allows us to maintain our standard of living while we expect them to get around on foot or using bikes. The atmosphere can only accept so much greenhouse gas, and it has to be divided somehow, the fairest way is by population.
DwightBranchWhen the US is is finally forced, kicking and screaming, to sign a treaty limiting its greenhouse gas emissions (likely in response to the demands for ecotariffs on the US by Europeans that would cost roughly the same) the US will likely be limited to producing 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, because we are 5% of the world's population.
The U.S. emits disproportionately more CO2 than many other lesser-developed countries because it has a lager manufacturing base and a higher standard of living. If you force the world to redistribute the right to emit CO2 on the basis of population, there can only be two results.
One is that the U.S. pays what amounts to a gigantic fine for continuing its standard of living and manufacturing. That other is that the U.S. will not pay the fine, and so the U.S. standard of living and manufacturing base will have to fall to reach parity with the rest of the world’s countries.
dakotafred Schlimm: I'm reminded of probably the only useful keepsake from John Connolly's (sp?) 1980 GOP presidential candidacy. He said, "The worst environment I can think of is to be cold, hungry and out of a job."
Schlimm: I'm reminded of probably the only useful keepsake from John Connolly's (sp?) 1980 GOP presidential candidacy. He said, "The worst environment I can think of is to be cold, hungry and out of a job."
I don't think you understand that we will not have a choice. Right now 16% of our GDP is derived from exports. What happens if we stomp our feet and say "you can't make me give up my 4WD pickup as a passenger car"? The rest of the world slaps our exports with ecotariffs severe enough that our exports are uncompetitive. The 2007 collapse wiped out about 14% of GDP, what would 16% look like?
People, you're mad. We may be only 5 percent of the head count, but thanks to the American genius we do a much higher percentage of the world's work. (Haven't seen a figure recently, but it used to be around 25 percent.)
In any case: Why should we volunteer for living standards that are a world "average"? Have you ever been to the Third World? Who would volunteer his children and grandchildren for such a thing on the basis of the theory of "man-made" climate change?
(Anyway, if the climate is warming -- from whatever cause -- who cares? Be scared if we're cooling, as we do every 10,000 years or so. There would be a game-changer.)
dakotafred: We will jettison coal to our sorrow, especially when natural gas reassumes something more like its historical price. As we were hammered over the head with during the energy problems of the 1970s, electrical production is a wasteful application of natural gas, whose efficiency there is only about 35 percent, versus virtually 100 percent in home heating. We have a glut of natural gas now. But a lot of that production is associated with oil drilling, and if the extremists ever succeed in shutting down fracking, hang onto your keister. China would be better advised to clean up its coal plants than to shut them down. If its plants burned as cleanly as most of our newer, bigger ones, they wouldn't have a problem.
We will jettison coal to our sorrow, especially when natural gas reassumes something more like its historical price.
As we were hammered over the head with during the energy problems of the 1970s, electrical production is a wasteful application of natural gas, whose efficiency there is only about 35 percent, versus virtually 100 percent in home heating.
We have a glut of natural gas now. But a lot of that production is associated with oil drilling, and if the extremists ever succeed in shutting down fracking, hang onto your keister.
China would be better advised to clean up its coal plants than to shut them down. If its plants burned as cleanly as most of our newer, bigger ones, they wouldn't have a problem.
I am no expert (and at the risk of getting off topic) but I thought that Natural Gas Gas/Steam Turbine Combined cycle plants were more efficient than that? Is'nt the 35% efficiency rating for Thermal plants; I.E burning the NG to make Steam as can be done in many primarily coal burning plants which are equipped to use both fuels?
Well I would never claim to be an expert on anything but I am in the energy business. The efficiency of any external combustion process is limited to 35-40%. Combined cycle plants benefit by using the combustion twice. The most common set up is 2 combustion turbines in the neighborhood of 180 mw each. The exhaust goes to heat recovery steam generators (fancy name for a boiler) to produce steam for a steam turbine of as much as 280mw.
I can't say there is no such thing but I have never seen a boiler that could burn gas and coal. They are completely different animals. A gas fired steam plant is a loser even at todays prices. Right up the road from me is a gas fired plant in mothballs. It has not fired up even in this record hot summer.
There is no escaping the laws of supply and demand. On the supply side we have more coal than we know what to do with. Right now demand is down because our economy is in the sewer. IF the economy comes back, where will the energy come from? I might shut a coal plant down right now but I'd have my nuke application submitted first.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.