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Global warming

dlague

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Global warming = Big business. A utility I worked for was scrubbing coal ash from stacks at 95% and were told that was not good enough. That was 1.7 million per scrubber on 5 stacks. Now they are going to spend another 17 million for gain another 2.5 percent. Guess who pays for it - you guessed it the customer.

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Jully

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Global warming = Big business. A utility I worked for was scrubbing coal ash from stacks at 95% and were told that was not good enough. That was 1.7 million per scrubber on 5 stacks. Now they are going to spend another 17 million for gain another 2.5 percent. Guess who pays for it - you guessed it the customer.

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That's more acid rain and VOC prevention. "Clean coal" from a CO2 perspective is not currently implemented in the U.S. and to Edd's point, all green tech is pennies compared to the fossil fuel industry. Its not even a comparison. That's not to say theres money in green and clean tech, but we're talking totally different scales.
 

BenedictGomez

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1hfeak.jpg
 

dlague

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CS, Colorado
That's more acid rain and VOC prevention. "Clean coal" from a CO2 perspective is not currently implemented in the U.S. and to Edd's point, all green tech is pennies compared to the fossil fuel industry. Its not even a comparison. That's not to say theres money in green and clean tech, but we're talking totally different scales.

Colorado Springs Utilities can burn coal cleaner than they can burn natural gas. Scrubbing coal stacks is pretty prevalent over all but does nothing for CO2. As far as CO2, many of the existing power plants that are coal fired are scheduled to be replaced with massive solar farms and other alternatives, but the cool plant in the Springs will be online until 2035 before it gets retired. The larger strategy has been focused on retirement to reducing CO2. A lot of the issue is also how CO2 emissions are reported to the UN which is based on a yearly concern rather than a lifetime model
 

Jully

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Colorado Springs Utilities can burn coal cleaner than they can burn natural gas. Scrubbing coal stacks is pretty prevalent over all but does nothing for CO2. As far as CO2, many of the existing power plants that are coal fired are scheduled to be replaced with massive solar farms and other alternatives, but the cool plant in the Springs will be online until 2035 before it gets retired. The larger strategy has been focused on retirement to reducing CO2. A lot of the issue is also how CO2 emissions are reported to the UN which is based on a yearly concern rather than a lifetime model

Absolutely. Every energy type has its advantages and drawbacks. Theres some pretty impressive coal technology out there for sure.

Reporting to the U.N. or anywhere in general is definitely an issue as well.
 

dlague

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Absolutely. Every energy type has its advantages and drawbacks. Theres some pretty impressive coal technology out there for sure.

Reporting to the U.N. or anywhere in general is definitely an issue as well.
And corporations that use coal are meeting requirements due reporting requirements that are on a life time and not per year by reporting annual figures.

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Los

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Tuna - I said I'd pm you but never did. Having looked back through the posts, I'll just say "+1" to Rogman's post (+1 more or less...)...
 

Tin

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Funny to see both sides when in reality the best researchers on both sides agree "we really don't know what the hell is going on". How we approach that unknown in either a "safe than sorry" or "continue as planned" method is then turned into "We are all going to die!" or "Hippy Liberals!".

Being skeptical of science in moderation is key.
 
Last edited:

SkiFanE

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When does plain common sense take precedence when details make people bicker? The earth is like a fish bowl. It's finite in size and resources. When the fish reproduce to the point it's clogged with fish - do you think the fish bowl environment is affected? Of course. You need a bigger filter and probably other aquatic fixes I don't know about. So to deny that the human population growth (coupled with the resources that seem to be in greater consumption with modern life) has no affect on the climate is stupid. To what extent? Who knows. We were covered in 2 miles of ice 10000 years ago - the earth swings without us humans messing with it. So what if scientists don't know the whole truth. I'd rather gamble they know stuff I don't and proceed with measures that help the earth. What is the harm? Really... Industries and economics change continually - bummer if someone loses a job over it - but that's life with progress.
 

jack97

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there are some who believe that this is not a gamble......

The plot below show the results using a "singular spectrum analysis" a fancy term/technique to separate seasonal or cyclic trends from measured data. The CO2 emission growth rate has been flat since the early 2000s. The interesting point is around 2003, China ramp up their economy, so the fossil fuel emission growth rate increased by a factor of two or more. you can see this in right most plot, black dash line. If humans are the cause of the CO2 emission, the data left most plot would not show a flat trend. yet the measured data has been flat from ~ 2000 to present. However there is small residual trace the author calls the "airborne fraction" which is attributed to humans but this quantity has been recently deceasing.

The main point is the results fails to show fossil fuel emission causing the growth of measured CO2 emissions. And no, this was not funded by Exxon nor Mobil.


ncomms13428-f1.jpg
 

Puck it

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there are some who believe that this is not a gamble......

The plot below show the results using a "singular spectrum analysis" a fancy term/technique to separate seasonal or cyclic trends from measured data. The CO2 emission growth rate has been flat since the early 2000s. The interesting point is around 2003, China ramp up their economy, so the fossil fuel emission growth rate increased by a factor of two or more. you can see this in right most plot, black dash line. If humans are the cause of the CO2 emission, the data left most plot would not show a flat trend. yet the measured data has been flat from ~ 2000 to present. However there is small residual trace the author calls the "airborne fraction" which is attributed to humans but this quantity has been recently deceasing.

The main point is the results fails to show fossil fuel emission causing the growth of measured CO2 emissions. And no, this was not funded by Exxon nor Mobil.


ncomms13428-f1.jpg
you should always post source for this data. Just because they will say it is fake or from a funder of dubious motives

another thing was back in the 70's geologists thought we would run out of oil by now. Just sayin. Science is not always what it seems.
 

LONGBOARDR

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there are some who believe that this is not a gamble......

The plot below show the results using a "singular spectrum analysis" a fancy term/technique to separate seasonal or cyclic trends from measured data. The CO2 emission growth rate has been flat since the early 2000s. The interesting point is around 2003, China ramp up their economy, so the fossil fuel emission growth rate increased by a factor of two or more. you can see this in right most plot, black dash line. If humans are the cause of the CO2 emission, the data left most plot would not show a flat trend. yet the measured data has been flat from ~ 2000 to present. However there is small residual trace the author calls the "airborne fraction" which is attributed to humans but this quantity has been recently deceasing.

The main point is the results fails to show fossil fuel emission causing the growth of measured CO2 emissions. And no, this was not funded by Exxon nor Mobil.

NO, your interpretation of the plot and data is wrong.

Plot 1A does show a flat trend from 2000- ~2014, what that means is that the rate of CO2 growth has been steady at about 2 ppm/yr for that time. the amount of CO2 in the atm is still increasing!

For 2016 increase is about 3.2 ppm/yr, so growth rate is increasing again.

Plot 1b shows fossil fuel emission increasing, and the airborne fraction decreasing. The data presented in the article by the authors attribute this to increased rates of terrestrial uptake of CO2 for a variety of reasons.

The scientific objective of this article was to demonstrate that the ongoing enhancement of CO2 uptake by the terrestrial biosphere is slowing the rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere.
which it does.
Further, enhanced uptake by either terrestrial or oceanic sinks is not likely to continue too much into the future. my opinion.

literature cited:
Keenan, T. F. et al. Recent pause in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 due to enhanced terrestrial carbon uptake. Nat. Commun. 7, 13428 doi: 10.1038/ncomms13428 (2016)


Hope this helps
 

jack97

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there are some who believe that this is not a gamble......

The plot below show the results using a "singular spectrum analysis" a fancy term/technique to separate seasonal or cyclic trends from measured data. The CO2 emission growth rate has been flat since the early 2000s. The interesting point is around 2003, China ramp up their economy, so the fossil fuel emission growth rate increased by a factor of two or more. you can see this in right most plot, black dash line. If humans are the cause of the CO2 emission, the data left most plot would not show a flat trend. yet the measured data has been flat from ~ 2000 to present. However there is small residual trace the author calls the "airborne fraction" which is attributed to humans but this quantity has been recently deceasing.

The main point is the results fails to show fossil fuel emission causing the growth of measured CO2 emissions. And no, this was not funded by Exxon nor Mobil.

NO, your interpretation of the plot and data is wrong.

Plot 1A does show a flat trend from 2000- ~2014, what that means is that the rate of CO2 growth has been steady at about 2 ppm/yr for that time. the amount of CO2 in the atm is still increasing!

For 2016 increase is about 3.2 ppm/yr, so growth rate is increasing again.

Plot 1b shows fossil fuel emission increasing, and the airborne fraction decreasing. The data presented in the article by the authors attribute this to increased rates of terrestrial uptake of CO2 for a variety of reasons.

The scientific objective of this article was to demonstrate that the ongoing enhancement of CO2 uptake by the terrestrial biosphere is slowing the rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere.
which it does.
Further, enhanced uptake by either terrestrial or oceanic sinks is not likely to continue too much into the future. my opinion.

literature cited:
Keenan, T. F. et al. Recent pause in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 due to enhanced terrestrial carbon uptake. Nat. Commun. 7, 13428 doi: 10.1038/ncomms13428 (2016)


Hope this helps

Plot 1b was taken from an updated data set from the Global Carbon Project, below shows the growth rate. Causality for a physical process applies even when considering a linear operation such as rate of growth. Meaning if humans are causing the CO2 growth, we should have some of the fossil fuel rate of growth in the CO2 emission data set.

global_co2_emissions.jpg
 

dlague

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Messages
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Location
CS, Colorado
you should always post source for this data. Just because they will say it is fake or from a funder of dubious motives

another thing was back in the 70's geologists thought we would run out of oil by now. Just sayin. Science is not always what it seems.
They also thought that we would way warmer too.

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Edd

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Newmarket, NH
SkiFanE's fishbowl comparison seems apt. Seems a bit self destructive to decide to take zero precautions when we have indicators that something is wrong.

My personal opinion, nothing of substance will be done until a massive catastrophe occurs. Humans are lazy; they must be smacked in the face so that they pay attention.
 
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