[Optimus Prime]

I think we should just do to them what our forefathers did.

Beat their ass. Or show them up by doing everything they couldn't do.

[Cold Iron]

Back on topic:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/01/a...ate-change.html

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

That seems nothing more than a slight variation on the so-called "Tippy Canoe" theory that has been around for a while now. Essentially, the greater influx of fresh water into the Northern Atlantic causes north flowing tropical waters to sink to depth before significant cooling occurs. In other words, the north flowing waters sink when they encounter the less dense fresher waters flowing south. Over a short period of time the North Atlantic becomes significantly cooler and ultimately the conveyor currents are halted - which could lead to rapid cooling of Europe and North America.

[Cold Iron]

Gwynn ap Nudd;364233 said:

That seems nothing more than a slight variation on the so-called "Tippy Canoe" theory that has been around for a while now. Essentially, the greater influx of fresh water into the Northern Atlantic causes north flowing tropical waters to sink to depth before significant cooling occurs. In other words, the north flowing waters sink when they encounter the less dense fresher waters flowing south. Over a short period of time the North Atlantic becomes significantly cooler and ultimately the conveyor currents are halted - which could lead to rapid cooling of Europe and North America.

The news is the discovery of the speed with which this occurred, under a year is faster than anyone had previously suggested.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Ah, crap. We're doomed. Again.

[Cold Iron]

Nah, just Europe

[Cold Iron]

Decent chance of actual progress with this:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/11/c...aust-power.html

[frookenhauer]

Thermocouples, nice. But what an eye opener in terms of the inefficiency of the internal combustion engine. I never knew it was that bad, to be fair, hadn't really thought about it much at all...

Ban the infernal combustion engine!

[cerveza_fiesta]

Cold Iron, on Aug 11 2008, 07:31 PM, said:

Decent chance of actual progress with this:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/11/c...aust-power.html

This stuff has been around for years. The heating and cooling application for the car interior functions on a semiconductor device called a peltier junction. Apply current in one direction and it draws heat from one side of the semiconductor chip and rejected from the other. Reverse the current direction and it reverses the side that the heat is drawn in / rejected. This is what cools your plug-in car cooler

You can actually buy a thermoelectric cooling system for your computer on ebay

linky

And the same for your car seats (as discussed in CI's article)

linky 2

The carseat thing is a wonderful idea because it's more or less instantaneous. The second you apply electricity you get heat flowing through the device. A simple switching of the current flow turns it from a seat cooler to seat heater and back again. Much more efficient way of delivering comfort since you don't have to do anything to heat the air inside the car. Heating air takes oodles of energy because it doesn't conduct heat very well. With this system, you can basically get every occupant comfortable immediately, which means there is a delay in hitting the A/C button...or in situations where it's kinda hot but not too bad (late spring and early fall) maybe the A/C isn't necessary and the seat will keep you comfortable enough on its own. I've even read patents for a system like this to go into the car ventilation system en lieu of a refrigerant cycle air conditioner. They are still in development and don't work supremely well but it's a much more efficient way to get the occupants cool. Refrigerant-cycle A/C sucks a lot of horsepower off the engine and is really an archaic system that should have been replaced a looong time ago.

The thing they want to put on car exhaust systems is a thermocouple (already mentioned by fook). Simply 2 different metals bonded together at one end and the other end of each metal attached to a wire. Heat the metals and you get a voltage difference across the wire leads at the other end. This is a really good idea because there is really no way (other than climate control) that the waste heat from an IC engine can contribute to the primary functions of a car. If this system can take some load off the alternator to keep the battery charged then you get a direct improvement in engine performance. The alternator turns on a fanbelt directly connected to the engine driveshaft so any little bit of electric power used by the car causes a parasitic drag on the driveshaft. Every horsepower that goes to turning that alternator is a horsepower that isn't pushing the car forward. Same goes for turning the car's water pumps (mentioned in the article). Normally these are fanbelt driven as well...again causing parasitic drag on the driveshaft. Power them by other means, more horsepower goes to the tires, less gas is consumed.

frookenhauer, on Aug 11 2008, 08:02 PM, said:

Thermocouples, nice. But what an eye opener in terms of the inefficiency of the internal combustion engine. I never knew it was that bad, to be fair, hadn't really thought about it much at all...

Ban the infernal combustion engine!

and stop all industry and transportation on the planet. While we're at it forget about electricity.
============

EDIT: what will really impress me is when they develop a system that can be economically be aplied to the transportation industry as a whole, or any industrial process that generates a lot of waste heat. The solutions they put on consumer cars are great and all...but transportation of the citizenry really only constitutes a small portion of GHG emissions worldwide. I understand that putting this research into consumer vehicles is great for public relations, marketing and sales and it does make an impact (albeit a small one). I'm just less than impressed when you have countries riddled with coal/gas power plants, which is a massive GHG emission source and nothing like this being developed for them.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 02 October 2008 - 12:10 PM

[Cold Iron]

cerveza_fiesta, on Oct 2 2008, 10:00 PM, said:

and stop all industry and transportation on the planet. While we're at it forget about electricity.

Now you're speaking my language!

[Cold Iron]

Watch!

http://www.ThisIsReality.org

[Lost Marine]

I think one of the most significant things America can do would be to revamp the rail system. Then instead of semi's running to all parts of the country we could actually ship things with efficient rail engines and distribute then from local centers.

[Cold Iron]

This year's climate change performance index:

1.
2.
3.
4. Sweden
5. Germany
6. France
7. India
8. Brazil
9. UK
10. Denmark
11. Norway
21. Ireland
34. South Africa
46. New Zealand
50. Austria
54. Russia
55. Australia
58. US
59. Canada
60. Saudi Arabia

sors: http://www.germanwat.../klima/ccpi.htm

[Lost Marine]

Cold Iron, on Dec 11 2008, 12:59 AM, said:

This year's climate change performance index:

1.
2.
3.
4. Sweden
5. Germany
6. France
7. India
8. Brazil
9. UK
10. Denmark
11. Norway
21. Ireland
34. South Africa
46. New Zealand
50. Austria
54. Russia
55. Australia
58. US
59. Canada
60. Saudi Arabia

sors: http://www.germanwat.../klima/ccpi.htm

Hahaha we're finally better than Canada, yay.

[Shinrei]

I read a pretty fascinating article in the Japan Times (I think it was originally from a british newspaper). Basically, I had no idea that in some instances it is more energy efficient to buy produce that has been shipped a long way than something local. Factory farming hundreds of miles away can sometimes bring produce to the grocer for less of a carbon footprint than some local yocal's farm.

I suppose this makes sense, I'd just never heard it before. Makes buying "green" produce even more difficult....

[Cold Iron]

The 20th, on Dec 12 2008, 02:18 AM, said:

I read a pretty fascinating article in the Japan Times (I think it was originally from a british newspaper). Basically, I had no idea that in some instances it is more energy efficient to buy produce that has been shipped a long way than something local. Factory farming hundreds of miles away can sometimes bring produce to the grocer for less of a carbon footprint than some local yocal's farm.

I suppose this makes sense, I'd just never heard it before. Makes buying "green" produce even more difficult....

Yeah, especially if you live in a country with high carbon based electricity sources. There are no easy solutions, I think the marine has a good point. Huge scale infrastructure projects are the best solution at this point. In every industry.

Keep your fingers crossed your government has sufficient independence from industry lobbyists and adequate energy advisers to make the right infrastructure investments. And let's keep our fingers crossed that our governments stop handing money out to failed businesses.

Energy generation is number 1 priority. If we get this clean, we can run everything clean. We need a combination of all sources. Each state needs a budget for at least one state owned and run nuclear station. We don't want these things privatised because private companies are irresponsible by nature. We also need a huge federal grant budget for private wind, solar, tidal and geothermal projects based on contribution in Watts alone, not costs or how many favours they do during election time. Lastly we need a gigantic research grant system, based mainly on developing proven technologies from the final stages of design to competitive market product. No pipe-dream technologies like nuclear fusion.

Long haul transportation is number 2 priority in countries like Australia, US, Canada, China, India. Places like the UK and Germany don't quite have this problem, due to relative size, and quality of infrastructure already in place. One word, trackwork. No matter how good your trains, if your tracks are trash, you'll lose. Spend the money. Get some seriously straight tracks out there and the quality of the trains you can buy goes up. Easy.

Inner city mass transport. There are some cities where it is a crime, seriously, a CRIME to still be letting people drive everywhere. My home town (Sydney) is one of them. I mean what the fuck. Any place where it takes an hour to travel 20km by car NEEDS A FUCKING RAIL SYSTEM! Easiest way is on street light-rail. Close some fucking lanes off and make the people get the tram. Even better, spend the money and go for a subway. Every European city worth it's salt has one, but us colonials just decided to cheap out - NYC excluded.

And there we have it. These three focuses on infrastructure projects coupled with tighter regulations on industry be it the comply or fine system, or better yet the cap and trade system, or even better an outright tax system and we go a long way to solving the problem. No miracles, just things we know how to do. Things we've been doing for centuries.

[Cold Iron]

hm. are you shin 20th??

[Shinrei]

Yes, I'm actually Shinrei. Since I was using my mask avatar, I counted the lines and decided to change my name for a bit.

Good post CI, the only part you know I'll take issue with is "private companies are irresponsible by nature" which is a weird blanket statement.

If you'd said "governments are irresponsible by nature" I would be more inclined to agree.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Lost Marine, on Dec 9 2008, 05:37 PM, said:

I think one of the most significant things America can do would be to revamp the rail system. Then instead of semi's running to all parts of the country we could actually ship things with efficient rail engines and distribute then from local centers.

It'll never happen. The truckers have too strong of a union, they won't let it happen even if it needs to.

[Macros]

Britain's government has set the goal of all new homes by 2016 being Zero Carbon (the draw nothing form the national grid and only use biomass/woodchip burners) as idealic as this dream is, (with proposed legislation making it law, and pushing it to all non domestic buildings by 2020) it won't happen, the costs involved are high, and if the gov subsidises it all, well they'll be even more broke than before, i think putting the subsidy money towards the severn estuary barrier would be better spent.
That beiong said, buildings running and maintenance accounts for over 40% of the uks carbon output annually, the goal is to wipe this out withzero carbon buildings. ambitious and would do a lot of good.
i have links lying aorund somewhere (my disseratation touches on this, hence my interest)