Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Dandai_sl said:

Solar power? Here, use these 30 4x4 panels to power your house... during the day... .

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The thing is; we have the capability to store solar to handle "base load" generation--which means it must produce power 24/7 (And no, it doesn't require batteries). The problem is, it's extremely expensive comparatively. If money was no concern, you could easily set up solar fields, combined with molten salt storage; or hydro-pump storage (Essentially using solar to power pumps; to push water up into a reservoir and then use gravity at night to power things). And solar can easily store IMMENSE amounts of energy with these processes, even on cloudy days. The problem is, evenwithoutenergy storage? Even cheap solar plants (Without PV; just using mirrors and lenses) are something likedouble to triplethe cost of coal and nuclear. Once you add in the immense amount of capital needed for storage (Like digging a pump mechanism for a reservoir ect). And it becomes a lot more expensive.

However, the point is, the hurdle isn't a "technical" one. Again, if money was no concern; the solar could easily run the world (Well, at least the main stationary grids). People don't realize how much energy falls onto the earth for free--but it makes every other energy source we have look like child's play. And we can harness it without a lot of fancy tech; a bunch of mirrors and large focusing lenses can create a molten reactor just fine. It's actually a pretty amazing power source.

The cost thing though, that's difficult to overcome. We are just so good at digging up and distributing fossil's that it's almost ridiculous how inexpensive it is by comparison. And while it might be noble of us to say "no cost is too great for Captain Planet!"--I'm afraid that when the bill that's a good *5 standard comes in; Al Gore isn't going to be there to help the family barely scrapping by the pay it. I mean, yes "spill over" costs, if they were included in coal, make things slightly more even--but they aren't.

Anyway though, I'm also surprised he advocated Solar/Wind--while those are technically possible, their expense makes them an enormous hurdle compared to IFR nuclear, which is, in my opinion, the best energy option currently. It produces only 1% waste from radioactive fuel used and it can use conventional nuclear plantswaste as fuel. It does have a very high initial capital cost, but it's energy production costs are extremely low, and it's fuel, due to it's long life span, is shielded pretty well from the market. Also we have enough of the fuel needed for it to supply the world for the next 10-50thousandyears, depending on who you ask. The stigma away from nuclear power is far, far dumber than any cost aversion to "green" energies. IFR plants have already been built to, but in France they were actually attacked with rockets by crazy lefties.

Scientists theorize that there may be a multi-decadal trend in solar output, though if one exists, it has not been observed as yet. Even if the Sun were getting brighter, however, the pattern of warming observed on Earth since 1950 does not match the type of warming the Sun alone would cause. When the Sun's energy is at its peak (solar maxima), temperatures in both the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) become warmer. Instead, observations show the pattern expected from greenhouse gas effects: Earth's surface and troposphere have warmed, but the stratosphere has cooled.

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Global Warming : Feature Articles

This show was a bigger disappointment than Final Fantasy 8.

Sylas_sl said:

Just watched this episode and I don't see him poking any holes in the rebuttals to anthromorphic climate change. He also blatantly lied when he said that the sun's energy output has been unchanged during the last few decades. The sun's output is constantly changing, and matches up far more precisely to the global temperature (up or down) than CO2 does.

The primary evidence against man-made global warming is and has always been where the warming is taking place, which again he blatantly lied about.
The greenhouse effect is when energy from the sun is reflected off the earth and gets trapped in the atmosphere. It heats up that part of the atmosphere, sending the heat back down to earth and increasing the temperature. It's like wearing a sweater. If the warming is due to greenhouse effect then the troposphere would increase in temperature at a rate greater than the surface of the earth. it isn't. That's the rub.

Thus the greenhouse effect is not responsible for the global temperature warming (or for the last decade or so, global cooling). What the greenhouse effect does is trap heat to keep the temperature stable and habitable. Of course the green house effect impacts climate just not in the way it's being lobbied today for political reasons.

Yes humans are like the 8th largest source of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere after the oceans, dying vegetation, breathing, etc etc. And yes CO2 is like 15-20% of the Greenhouse effect (75% of the Greenhouse effect coming from Water Vapor/Clouds which we have fuck all to do with), but no, sadly our wanton disregard for the environment is not responsible for our impending doom via climate change.

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Almost all of this is wrong.

There is an entire thread specifically for it. So this sort of self-limits to the context of the show.

Sylas_sl said:

Just watched this episode and I don't see him poking any holes in the rebuttals to anthromorphic climate change. He also blatantly lied when he said that the sun's energy output has been unchanged during the last few decades. The sun's output is constantly changing, and matches up far more precisely to the global temperature (up or down) than CO2 does.

The primary evidence against man-made global warming is and has always been where the warming is taking place, which again he blatantly lied about.
The greenhouse effect is when energy from the sun is reflected off the earth and gets trapped in the atmosphere. It heats up that part of the atmosphere, sending the heat back down to earth and increasing the temperature. It's like wearing a sweater. If the warming is due to greenhouse effect then the troposphere would increase in temperature at a rate greater than the surface of the earth. it isn't. That's the rub.

Thus the greenhouse effect is not responsible for the global temperature warming (or for the last decade or so, global cooling). What the greenhouse effect does is trap heat to keep the temperature stable and habitable. Of course the green house effect impacts climate just not in the way it's being lobbied today for political reasons.

Yes humans are like the 8th largest source of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere after the oceans, dying vegetation, breathing, etc etc. And yes CO2 is like 15-20% of the Greenhouse effect (75% of the Greenhouse effect coming from Water Vapor/Clouds which we have fuck all to do with), but no, sadly our wanton disregard for the environment is not responsible for our impending doom via climate change.

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Our planet really is fucked.

Dandai_sl said:

I, for one, appreciate your well thought out and evidence supported rebuttal (not to mention the almost overwhelming number of links). I wish we had more posters like you.

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Maybe go up 2 whole posts? He's the one pulling fake facts out of his ass, so he's the one that should be citing sources.

Sylas_sl said:

Just watched this episode and I don't see him poking any holes in the rebuttals to anthromorphic climate change. He also blatantly lied when he said that the sun's energy output has been unchanged during the last few decades. The sun's output is constantly changing, and matches up far more precisely to the global temperature (up or down) than CO2 does.

The primary evidence against man-made global warming is and has always been where the warming is taking place, which again he blatantly lied about.
The greenhouse effect is when energy from the sun is reflected off the earth and gets trapped in the atmosphere. It heats up that part of the atmosphere, sending the heat back down to earth and increasing the temperature. It's like wearing a sweater. If the warming is due to greenhouse effect then the troposphere would increase in temperature at a rate greater than the surface of the earth. it isn't. That's the rub.

Thus the greenhouse effect is not responsible for the global temperature warming (or for the last decade or so, global cooling). What the greenhouse effect does is trap heat to keep the temperature stable and habitable. Of course the green house effect impacts climate just not in the way it's being lobbied today for political reasons.

Yes humans are like the 8th largest source of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere after the oceans, dying vegetation, breathing, etc etc. And yes CO2 is like 15-20% of the Greenhouse effect (75% of the Greenhouse effect coming from Water Vapor/Clouds which we have fuck all to do with), but no, sadly our wanton disregard for the environment is not responsible for our impending doom via climate change.

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[Citation Needed]

A lot of this goes against what I have read about the scientific consensus on this issue. Is your post a case of "Here facts! Go look them up if you don't believe me! *vanish* or "Here facts! Here are my sources if you don't believe me! *SCIENCE*"

No dude, he doesn't need to cite anything. Only the people calling out the crazy old man yelling at the clouds need actual sources

There are enough climate scientists that, unless you yourself ARE a climate scientist, you aren't allowed to have an opinion on global warming. You're wrong, even if you're right. Listen to experts, be skeptical, then assume the 99/100 times your skepticism is wrong includes this time.

Lithose_sl said:

The thing is; we have the capability to store solar to handle "base load" generation--which means it must produce power 24/7 (And no, it doesn't require batteries). The problem is, it's extremely expensive comparatively. If money was no concern, you could easily set up solar fields, combined with molten salt storage; or hydro-pump storage (Essentially using solar to power pumps; to push water up into a reservoir and then use gravity at night to power things). And solar can easily store IMMENSE amounts of energy with these processes, even on cloudy days. The problem is, evenwithoutenergy storage? Even cheap solar plants (Without PV; just using mirrors and lenses) are something likedouble to triplethe cost of coal and nuclear. Once you add in the immense amount of capital needed for storage (Like digging a pump mechanism for a reservoir ect). And it becomes a lot more expensive.

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You're kinda creating a giant kinetic battery doing that, instead of a chemical one. And we will still need the chemical ones for portability.

Nuclear just makes more sense to me. Generating electricity doesn't seem to be the major problem, we're very clever with that, it's transporting that power. It seems like you're wasting an awful lot of fossil fuel in burning it just to generate power to keep the stationary structures electrified.

Selix_sl said:

the scientific consensus on this issue.

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This should read "the science on the issue". Consensus is a word made up by the media which really helps drive debate. Science doesn't care about consensus. Scientists don't care about it either - they're not performing tests to be a part of the consensus of the cool kids. The science we've performed overwhelmingly tells us that the earth is warming and we're causing at least a good portion of it.

Iannis_sl said:

You're kinda creating a giant kinetic battery doing that, instead of a chemical one. And we will still need the chemical ones for portability.

Nuclear just makes more sense to me. Generating electricity doesn't seem to be the major problem, we're very clever with that, it's transporting that power. It seems like you're wasting an awful lot of fossil fuel in burning it just to generate power to keep the stationary structures electrified.

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Well, yeah, a "kinetic" battery--the important distinction though is digging a reservoir or molten salt doesn't require rare earths and other chemicals needed for standard battery storage (Salt's pretty easy to come by; and the reservoir is just essentially a pump/hydro system) . It's all very low tech, as it were (I mean, yes, we'd need batteries for cars--but if you solve the grid Co2 problem; cars still using oil is much less pressing).

However, yeah-nuclear though makes the most sense, especially IFR nuclear. Much smaller footprints, allows for less logistics in terms of storage--because it can handle base loads without it and a whole slew of other benefits. Which all comes down to meaning we can place them all over so we don't lose as much transporting the energy through the grid (And we don't have to build as many separate, high cost peak load stations) IFR's are also a lot more "melt down" safe than typical light or heavy water reactors (I'm not sure on specifics but supposedly if there is a problem; their own reaction ends up sealing themselves off; it doesn't require mechanical interference like light waters). And since they use 99% of the nuclear fuel? They generate just tiny amounts of waste (And that waste has a relatively short half life, even--like a few years, if I recall.)

Which is why the episode surprised me; the biggest missed boat of our time is not Wind or Solar--it's nuclear. The ignorance against nuclear power is really the core of our energy problems.

Lithose_sl said:

Which is why the episode surprised me; the biggest missed boat of our time is not Wind or Solar--it's nuclear. The ignorance against nuclear power is really the core of our energy problems.

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They really should have. The anti-nuclear, anti-GMO, anti-vaccine hippy fanatics are just as bad as creationists.

New episode get released early?

Ambiturner_sl said:

They really should have. The anti-nuclear, anti-GMO, anti-vaccine hippy fanatics are just as bad as creationists.

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I have not met a hippy anti-vaccine person and I know several of them unfortunately.

I just wanna say that I've lived in the radioactive fallout-shadow of a nuclear power plant for the past 15 years of my life. I'm not dead yet!

Put them all in North Carolina, imo. The rest of you pussy fucks will pay to behold our glowing pines!