A slightly different angle

GasGuzzler wrote:
Oh, you want scientist liars? OK, sorry. I'll do some more legwork for you. Google can be tough to navigate.

Surface Detail wrote:So no actual scientist, then?

GasGuzzler wrote:I googled "global warming blamed on 300,000 deaths" and page after page after page.

Not one of these was a "scientist"?

Surface Detail wrote: It's possible that there are fewer people alive today than there otherwise would be as a consequence of the initial effects of AGW.

Surface Detail wrote: That's why it's best to stick to actual scientific sources for scientific information.

Surface Detail wrote: But this is all fairly irrelevant. The forecast human consequences of AGW are just that: forecasts.

Surface Detail wrote: While we are seeing some initial effects of AGW, such as a measurable temperature rise matching predictions and melting Arctic ice, it's still very early days.

Surface Detail wrote: If we don't take the issue seriously, it'll be our kids and their kids that bear the consequences rather than us.

GasGuzzler wrote:
May I remind you of your original claim that most of the liars were on my side?

I googled "global warming blamed on 300,000 deaths" and page after page after page.

Not one of these was a "scientist"?

All these reports of mass death, then these reporters are what? Misinformed? Stretching the truth?
Exaggerating? Blowing propaganda? Irresponsible? Lying? All of the above?

In a previous post you said that if you were dictator of the world you would heavily tax fossil fuels, and not ban them altogether. They would still be available to those willing to pay for them.

I'm sure you're a liberal, and that's fine for this discussion, I don't care. I find it interesting that a major liberal complaint is the widening income gap and class envy/warfare. With this tax plan, isn't that a good way to drive the income gap about 28 miles wide?

The wealthy would pay for and use fossil fuels for business, thereby staying in business, and pass the cost right down to the consumer, who just lost even more of his disposable income. I know without piston power and my work I would be just done. Send me the welfare check. What do you say?

Surface Detail wrote: Indeed. The most urgent goal is to substantially reduce fossil fuel consumption, and the most economically effective way to do so is through a carbon tax.

Surface Detail wrote: This would eliminate the use of fossil fuels for frivolous purposes, still allow their use where absolutely essential, and encourage the development of alternatives.

Surface Detail wrote: The free market should be allowed to come up with those alternatives; I don't think governments should be in the business of picking winners through subsidies.

Surface Detail wrote: I'm not a liberal, at least not in the US sense. I believe in a small, rational government that provides the basic framework for people to live their lives as they choose so long as they don't cause harm to others.

Surface Detail wrote: However, my political views have absolutely nothing to do with the reality or otherwise of AGW. That is a matter for science.

Surface Detail wrote: A high price on fossil fuels would allow them to be used in an economically sensible fashion.

Surface Detail wrote: The important thing is to start now, so as to give society time to adapt to the withdrawal of cheap fossil fuels.

"old sick silly sleepy sleazy slimy steenkin' filthy vile reprobate rooting (& rotting) racist pukey proud pig AGW denier liar whiner gasguzlr & gazmuflr" gushed: .... cut me some slack, I work with four hands but type with 2 fingers.

spot wrote:
I think that we are late to stop any bad effects but already renewable energy is showing to be a credible way to make energy.

We are already over 400 ppm so that ship have sailed, it wont go under that in our lifetimes there is no mechanism to make that happen.

I'm trying to think but can't see how being more energy efficient will detrimentally effect my life. Minor inconveniences like the plastic bag tax that some were outraged about but everyone got used to in a week maybe.

What about the bad effects of climate change? rising sea levels, increased food prices and people being forced to move causing tension, that sort of thing, your not concerned by that?

spot wrote:
Lets be honest there is a lot you don't know Tim. it never stops you weighing in on a subject with your idiotic opinions though.



Notice how much is grown in the tropics? right not a lot. its a temperate crop.

Interesting theory on how increasing temperatures is always good for crops. did you dream that up yourself? I suppose you will be starting a farm on the planet Venus then.

GasGuzzler wrote:
In the short time I've been on/reading this forum, it's been fun reading the back and forth on the subject of GW....although Ms Litebeer may want to lay off the copy and paste.

If I could, I would like to start a discussion from a slightly different view. I would especially like to hear from the left, the libs, the socialists and the communists.

Imagine for a moment you woke up tomorrow morning as supreme leader of planet Earth, with no congress, no parliament, no one standing in your way as you are now the absolute dictator of the world.

What immediate measures will you take to avoid the impending catastrophe?

What long term step will you take?

Do you slow increasing CO2 PPM rate?

Do you think it can be stopped at 400PPM?

Can we reduce CO2 back to 300?

How long will it take?

What sacrifices must be made by households and business alike?

I'm guessing my life will change drastically...how?

Wake wrote:
Solar farms require MORE energy to manufacture, install and maintain than they return. The ONLY reason that PG&E uses these devices is for the 3x tax deduction.

Surface Detail wrote:

Wake wrote:
Solar farms require MORE energy to manufacture, install and maintain than they return. The ONLY reason that PG&E uses these devices is for the 3x tax deduction.

You are, of course, lying. Look at this paper, for example:

Energy payback time (EPBT) and energy return on energy invested (EROI) of solar photovoltaic systems: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The authors found that solar photovoltaic systems have an EROI of between 8.7 to 34.2. This means that they return between 8.7 and 34.2 times more energy than is required to manufacture, install and maintain them.

Wake wrote:

Surface Detail wrote:

Wake wrote:
Solar farms require MORE energy to manufacture, install and maintain than they return. The ONLY reason that PG&E uses these devices is for the 3x tax deduction.

You are, of course, lying. Look at this paper, for example:

Energy payback time (EPBT) and energy return on energy invested (EROI) of solar photovoltaic systems: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The authors found that solar photovoltaic systems have an EROI of between 8.7 to 34.2. This means that they return between 8.7 and 34.2 times more energy than is required to manufacture, install and maintain them.

This paper is somewhat questionable. Silicon photovoltaics are extremely efficient and very long lived. This why they are used for satellite power. But you cannot mass produce them and they are EXTREMELY expensive and very fragile.

Thin film PV's on the other hand are NOT and even the manufacturers admit that; if you go to the shows and talk to the manufacturers themselves.

While they will quote 10 years and 24%-26% efficiency their own engineers in private conversations will say that they have a 5 year life of over 80% and that efficiency in place with covers and dust never exceeds 15-20%.

Reality keeps sneaking up and biting you on the butt when you aren't looking.

And maintenance is a MAJOR problem. All areas where they use solar farms have a great deal of airborne detritus mostly dust but heavy leaves in some areas. A week without cleaning puts these cells almost entirely out of order.

10% cloud cover makes them virtually worthless if this occurs in the hours of 10 am to 2 pm.

And as I've said - you CANNOT store this power so you need to CONVERT it to AC and put it on the power lines and this is neither easy or cheap and loses even more efficiency. Plus you can't trust a line-frequency clock anymore. Inverters do not maintain very accurate frequency control for the amount of money that they can put into them. So these jerks and slips end up on the power lines which are now no longer nearly perfectly on 60 hz. So you can't use the old instruments that used the 60 hz as a frequency standard.

Wouldn't life be wonderful if the world was a university professor's idea of it?

A PAPER on something is completely different from the actual experience of these things.

Sorry, but you are simply lying. Silicon photovoltaic are neither extremely expensive nor fragile, and they are being mass produced in millions, primarily by the Chinese. And modern inverters, for example, have efficiencies of over 98%. If you want to read some actual facts about photovoltaic power, here would be a good place to start:

FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE FOR SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEMS Photovoltaics Report

Wake wrote:

Sorry, but you are simply lying. Silicon photovoltaic are neither extremely expensive nor fragile, and they are being mass produced in millions, primarily by the Chinese. And modern inverters, for example, have efficiencies of over 98%. If you want to read some actual facts about photovoltaic power, here would be a good place to start:

FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE FOR SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEMS Photovoltaics Report

I'm an EE. And you're ...... what was that again? A transformer ALL BY ITSELF under ideal circumstances (a 1:1 conversion for isolation) is about 98% efficient. Under the conditions of an inverter where they have to raise a small voltage up to 240 VAC they run more in the area of 95%.

For applications such as solar you use very large germanium transistors which have a smaller forward bias and hence loss. But this loss at the normal 4 volt solar cell output is still 7%. As you pump more current through these transistors the more power losses you encounter.

We could put these solar cells in series to raise their voltage but then you encounter losses in the solar cells themselves.

So go right ahead and believe this sort of thing because you heard it on the grapevine. The only thing I can make of that article is that they are talking theoretical efficiency after the normal losses.


As for your dream of non-fragile and cheap silicon solar cells - go buy them and then tell me all about it. Monocrystalline solar cells are everything that I've said they are. And multicrystalline are no more efficient than thin film and are much more expensive to manufacture and are still fragile. Where do you get the idea that silicon crystals are not sensitive to temperature variations?