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climate change times are a changin'
- Thread starter huskyfan
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jmh
win or lose, we booze
Re: climate change times are a changin'
Right wing media trolling a Kennedy? That's unpossible.The grin on that babe's face when he starts getting agitated is priceless. She got exactly the reaction she was looking for.
Kepler
Si certus es dubita
Kepler
Si certus es dubita
Kepler
Si certus es dubita
St. Clown
Liberal Rebel Scum, apparently
Re: climate change times are a changin'
You do understand that these large oil companies have more going on that simply drilling, shipping and refining oil, right? Most of them are investing time and money into newer methods for obtaining energy. They can all see the writing on the walls, and aren't just sitting around to watch their business models fold in upon themselves.
Re: climate change times are a changin'
Besides which, electricity is just a transmission/storage method - NOT an energy source. Something has to power the electric plants. Given the NIMBY hysteria with nuclear power, that still means coal, oil, or gas. There aren't enough renewables to replace our existing electric power plants, much less to expand the capacity to feed all those electric cars. Don't shed any tears for Exxon - they will be juuuuust fine.
Kepler
Si certus es dubita
Re: climate change times are a changin'
GOOD! I don't want them to go out of business*; I just want their business to stop destroying the world.
* There will be plenty of time for the Star Chamber Wealth Trials later...
GOOD! I don't want them to go out of business*; I just want their business to stop destroying the world.
* There will be plenty of time for the Star Chamber Wealth Trials later...
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Kepler
Si certus es dubita
Re: climate change times are a changin'
OK, that's a good point. Let me ask you a question, though. (It's not a trap -- I don't know the answer.) What has a lower carbon footprint -- a mile driven in an electric car powered by a fossil fuel plant or a mile driven in a current car?
I'm not sure I'd call nuclear worries "NIMBY hysteria" unless you're willing to live right next to one. You and I have the luxury of choosing to live in nice leafy suburbs away from dirty (or lethal) industry. The people who don't have that luxury should fight tooth and nail to keep that stuff away from them.
OK, that's a good point. Let me ask you a question, though. (It's not a trap -- I don't know the answer.) What has a lower carbon footprint -- a mile driven in an electric car powered by a fossil fuel plant or a mile driven in a current car?
I'm not sure I'd call nuclear worries "NIMBY hysteria" unless you're willing to live right next to one. You and I have the luxury of choosing to live in nice leafy suburbs away from dirty (or lethal) industry. The people who don't have that luxury should fight tooth and nail to keep that stuff away from them.
Re: climate change times are a changin'
Don't you have a power plant just down the river from you in Dickerson as well as a nuclear waste dump that is a hazmat site?
Re: climate change times are a changin'
A. oil -> shipped to refinery -> refined to gasoline -> trucked to gas station -> combustion in tiny (inefficient) car engine -> motion
B. oil -> refined to fuel oil -> shipped to power plant -> combustion in massive (efficient) power plant -> generation losses -> transmission losses -> vehicle charging losses -> electric motor losses -> motion
I believe that if this is your accounting method, you would pick B (based on today's battery technology, which is the key enabler for an electric vehicle) - the gains in the combustion efficiency of a huge, stationary power plant are more than enough to make up for all those extra steps of transmitting, storing, and converting the electricity to motion. However, that really only tracks the efficiency of the various energy conversion and transport processes, once the infrastructure and the vehicles have been built. If you broaden your scope to include the relative energy required to construct the infrastructure and the vehicles, then everything gets a whole lot muddier. We already have a massive infrastructure to support A, so the "marginal cost" of putting the first electric vehicles on the road is enormous. However, if we imagine a world where B was the prevailing paradigm, we would say the same thing about A ("What? You're going to build 10s of thousands of filling stations and truck gasoline to them one at a time??? Are you nuts?"). And, it does take a whole lot more energy to build an electric car (batteries take a lot of energy to build), and that energy use has to be "amortized" over the life of the car - and the amount of energy to build electric cars is changing all the time...
The apples-to-apples comparison would be to look at what we have today (A), and compare it to how much energy we would be using to create that same transportation effect if we lived in a world with a similarly mature infrastructure for B. Since we can really only imagine what the B world would look like, it necessarily involves a lot of assumptions, extrapolations, and outright guesswork - not very satisfying to an engineer who would like to find a "definitive" answer.
That is a really excellent question, and I don't know a definitive answer - in fact, I'm not sure a definitive answer is really possible. On the face of it, it's an easy question: oil has two paths to create the motion of the vehicle which is the end result that you desire:
A. oil -> shipped to refinery -> refined to gasoline -> trucked to gas station -> combustion in tiny (inefficient) car engine -> motion
B. oil -> refined to fuel oil -> shipped to power plant -> combustion in massive (efficient) power plant -> generation losses -> transmission losses -> vehicle charging losses -> electric motor losses -> motion
I believe that if this is your accounting method, you would pick B (based on today's battery technology, which is the key enabler for an electric vehicle) - the gains in the combustion efficiency of a huge, stationary power plant are more than enough to make up for all those extra steps of transmitting, storing, and converting the electricity to motion. However, that really only tracks the efficiency of the various energy conversion and transport processes, once the infrastructure and the vehicles have been built. If you broaden your scope to include the relative energy required to construct the infrastructure and the vehicles, then everything gets a whole lot muddier. We already have a massive infrastructure to support A, so the "marginal cost" of putting the first electric vehicles on the road is enormous. However, if we imagine a world where B was the prevailing paradigm, we would say the same thing about A ("What? You're going to build 10s of thousands of filling stations and truck gasoline to them one at a time??? Are you nuts?"). And, it does take a whole lot more energy to build an electric car (batteries take a lot of energy to build), and that energy use has to be "amortized" over the life of the car - and the amount of energy to build electric cars is changing all the time...
The apples-to-apples comparison would be to look at what we have today (A), and compare it to how much energy we would be using to create that same transportation effect if we lived in a world with a similarly mature infrastructure for B. Since we can really only imagine what the B world would look like, it necessarily involves a lot of assumptions, extrapolations, and outright guesswork - not very satisfying to an engineer who would like to find a "definitive" answer.
I would happily live near a nuclear plant, except that those areas are usually blighted because most of the people who can afford to live elsewhere, do - I would be far more concerned about my actual neighbors than my industrial ones. I do, in fact, live in the shadow (literally) of a massive high-tension power transmission tower.
Kepler
Si certus es dubita
Re: climate change times are a changin'
Dickerson is a coal-oil hybrid electricity generation station. The Wiki says there is an incinerator next to it but I think that was mothballed a couple years ago (I could be wrong). Personally, the only threatening thing I've seen coming out of Dickerson are the deer and the occasional bear that get halfway across 270 before mating with a semi.
Ft. Detrick is obviously a HAZMAT site (when the biological agent zombie plague starts I'm going to be Patient, well, not Zero, but in the first thousand anyway). There was some sort of godawful pesticide plant around Airy called "Marinace Ficam," but the Superfund site lists it as rehabilitated (yeah right) and CSX has a very nasty dump east of here, but I don't know of anything nuclear.
Duke Energy tried to ram a plant down POR's throat about a decade ago and had gotten all the way to the bribery stage, but a local activist group shut them down, which is amazing because ten years ago this place was deep, deep red. Apparently free market Republicans don't like the free market so much when it's about to destroy their property values. That's only for colored folk.
Dickerson is a coal-oil hybrid electricity generation station. The Wiki says there is an incinerator next to it but I think that was mothballed a couple years ago (I could be wrong). Personally, the only threatening thing I've seen coming out of Dickerson are the deer and the occasional bear that get halfway across 270 before mating with a semi.
Ft. Detrick is obviously a HAZMAT site (when the biological agent zombie plague starts I'm going to be Patient, well, not Zero, but in the first thousand anyway). There was some sort of godawful pesticide plant around Airy called "Marinace Ficam," but the Superfund site lists it as rehabilitated (yeah right) and CSX has a very nasty dump east of here, but I don't know of anything nuclear.
Duke Energy tried to ram a plant down POR's throat about a decade ago and had gotten all the way to the bribery stage, but a local activist group shut them down, which is amazing because ten years ago this place was deep, deep red. Apparently free market Republicans don't like the free market so much when it's about to destroy their property values. That's only for colored folk.
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Kepler
Si certus es dubita
Re: climate change times are a changin'
So do I. When the Reptilians flip the switch to recreate Tunguska or whatever's supposed to happen, I'm a goner.
BTW, I swear when I was growing up transmission lines used to hum; they don't (or anyway the big array near me doesn't) anymore.
I do, in fact, live in the shadow (literally) of a massive high-tension power transmission tower.
So do I. When the Reptilians flip the switch to recreate Tunguska or whatever's supposed to happen, I'm a goner.
BTW, I swear when I was growing up transmission lines used to hum; they don't (or anyway the big array near me doesn't) anymore.
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Re: climate change times are a changin'
I've heard that there is a correlation with hearing loss and a precursor to the onset of senility......
I've heard that there is a correlation with hearing loss and a precursor to the onset of senility......
Re: climate change times are a changin'
That's interesting, I've heard that the onset of senility is often preceded by losing the ability to properly construct sentences...
That's interesting, I've heard that the onset of senility is often preceded by losing the ability to properly construct sentences...
Re: climate change times are a changin'
Yoda was senile?That's interesting, I've heard that the onset of senility is often preceded by losing the ability to properly construct sentences...
Re: climate change times are a changin'
Those kinds of correlations are just hogwash. I've been expecting to go blind since I was 15.
That's interesting, I've heard that the onset of senility is often preceded by losing the ability to properly construct sentences...
Those kinds of correlations are just hogwash. I've been expecting to go blind since I was 15.
Re: climate change times are a changin'
Like when a person splits an infinitive?
That's interesting, I've heard that the onset of senility is often preceded by losing the ability to properly construct sentences...
Like when a person splits an infinitive?
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