Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by AdmiralZhao

After a certain point, the demand for oil is elastic only in the sense that the groups that cannot afford it will die off. Oil is vital to nearly every aspect of modern society, and in particular to the industrialized agriculture that America uses to feed our population. Without at least a baseline amount of oil, the truck which delivers food to the grocery store does not arrive, and I have go Hinnom-style on my next door neighbors.

We have many trillions of dollars of infrastructure which can only use oil. And because everything currently relies on oil, any effort to upgrade this infrastructure will also require large amounts of oil. The scenario that people are worried about is that the free market doesn't start responding until oil is scarce and difficult to acquire, and at that point we don't have the energy resources to both maintain our society, acquire new oil, and upgrade our infrastructure.

This is one of the reasons why oil is different from platinum, paladium, or uranium. Society does not need constant inputs of these metals to function, and we can develop alternatives to these metals without needing large new stocks of these metals.

This is also why people want to see early development of alternatives to oil. When oil starts running low, we want oil to be in the same category as platinum, paladium, and uranium, i.e. something that is not hugely vital, and that we can continue to phase out without needing large new inputs.

'Die off' is a bit melodramatic. We just absorbed a tripling spike in the price of oil, and as far as I know, no deaths have occured because of it.

In point of fact, you are quite incorrect about society needing constant inputs of these metals. These metals are essential to hydrocarbon cracking, to computers, to Grignard reagents.

Yes, the scale of need is smaller - but that has to do with price. which was sort of my point. As oil increases price its relative importance will diminish.

It is critical now, because it was easily exploitable.

We continue to try to exploit oil, because even at its current prices, it is *less* of an lifestyle change than the alternatives.

[licker]

http://www.tcsdaily.com/Article.aspx?id=010405M

I'll post it again as I would be interested to see peoples responses to it.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by licker

http://www.tcsdaily.com/Article.aspx?id=010405M

I'll post it again as I would be interested to see peoples responses to it.

All I can say is, weird.

"Well, the big problem until recently with a solar forcing scenario for climate change has been that the sun's energy output through an 11-year sunspot cycle varies only by around 0.1 percent. This energy output variability is insufficient on it's own, to cause the 0.6 degree Celsius increase in global temperature observed through the 20th century."

In other words, it happens, but we can't explain why.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'" -Isaac Asimov

-Max

P.S. And yes, I've heard the theories about cosmic rays and cloud formation. I have no way to evaluate whether they're accurate.

[Executor]

Since we are talking about technologies of the future and alternative power sources, some of you might find this interesting.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...CzAtx43I2m5Y1Q

Helium 3, rare on Earth but an abundance of it on Moon. It is estimated that this potential power source could be available by year 2050. It's potencial is supposed to be enormous.

[atul]

Helium-3's use as a fusion fuel faces several difficulties. First of all, the reaction coefficients of He3-He3 -fusion require a lot higher temperature than for example Deuterium-Tritium fusion that's currently attempted in international fusion projects. Secondly, how are you planning on removing heat from plasma? With neutrons, 4/5 of the fusion energy is deposited at the walls by neutrons, but aneutronic fusion has nothing that's neutral in electric charge. And charged particles, like the proton advertised in wikipedia article, are trapped inside the plasma.

I'd get D-T fusion to work first. The activation by neutrons is a minor hurdle compared to the problems you have when none appear.

[Executor]

Ok, here's another one I remember reading somewhere.
Moon solar panels, there are some places on the moon that are exposed to Sun 90% of time, since the temperature of the moon is ? about 100C in the sun I believe, the usage of solar panel has greater potential there.
Energy gathered by solar panels could be transformed into microwaves and sent back to Earth to be transformed into electricity.

[licker]

Why so hostile Edi?

It's true that a large portion of that link deals with strawman arguments. And while even if he is correct it doesn't shed much light on where the real debate lies.

He also seems to have some kind of fascination with Crichton and Boortz, and last I checked, no one was taking them seriously (RIP to Crichton anyway...).

The case for AGW rests on proving the link between CO2 and rising temperatures. This I think, everyone here agrees on. So far this link has been found wanting in the data, and no matter how much it seems that the link should be undeniable, the facts do not actually support it (historically as well as currently).

It could be correct, and it's certainly an hypothesis worth continuing to investigate. Further, it's also worth spending time and resources to mitigate and adapt to climate changes no matter the driver. It's also a good idea to continue to investigate and develop alternate energy sources (and clean or green can have a priority).

However, all of that is completely beside the point of what the evidence actually shows, AS FAR AS A DIRECT LINK BETWEEN CO2 AND TEMPERATURE IS CONCERNED.

Sorry to shout, but that's the fact, and I don't want it to get lost in the silly name calling or strawman rhetoric some people have been throwing around in this thread.

Everyone seems to admit that global climate is a hideously complex beast and there is not an abundance of historical data to use (in terms of the kind of data we have started to collect over the past decade or so). My contention has never been against the fact that there has been warming, or that we should be looking at ways to mitigate the damages caused by climate change (since clearly climate change is inevitable anyway, no matter the perceived causes). My contention has been with the seeming willingness of many people, scientists with whom I work included, to jump off this cliff without the normal scrutiny applied.

Look at cold fusion, look at the anthrax scare, look at various epidemics from history, look at WMDs in Iraq. When the scientific method (or just raw data) is misapplied (or taken out of context by governments) the results are usually an embarrassment to all involved.

[MaxWilson]

Let me put it this way, Edi: it bothers me a lot that all the criticism of AGW seems to come from skeptics. Normally you would expect someone to say, "This is my theory, here are my assumptions. Initially we were concerned because it seemed like A, B, C, but examining the data from experiment X it turns out that Y. We are currently still trying to explain Z but we don't think it's really a problem."

It bothers me a lot that people like you and Dutch address only the quacks instead of real questions (like the ones raised in the article licker cited a few posts earlier, or the ones like "Why is GISS so careless with its data? Why should we trust them?"). This may be because the issue is so politicized that you get better mileage out of criticizing the quacks, I don't know. In theory, AGW advocates should be *raising* the questions as well as answering them. In practice it doesn't seem to work that way.

-Max

Edit: typo fixes, added GISS question.

[Edi]

I'll get back to licker's article tomorrow. It is a good one. G'night...

[licker]

Originally Posted by Edi

I'll get back to licker's article tomorrow. It is a good one. G'night...

I hope you mean good as in interesting, not good as in haha