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Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

Shirtless Guy said:
I'm with you geezer, wind chills and heat indexes are exaggerations of reality. They may actually measure something and they are a great tool for scientists but all they do is create unnecessary hysteria with weather like this.
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Part of the role of the NWS is to safeguard the public, and that means issuing warnings so that people are alerted to take necessary precautions.
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

geezer said:
I don't think they're a useful tool at all (that I know of). What bothers me is when some knucklehead is posting on Facebook "It's 40 below here today! I'm a real man cause I'm stupid enough to live in Grand Forks!" and then it comes to light that the "40 below" is actually some made up formula that's supposed to represent how fast heat would be lost through your skin if you stood outside without clothes, and the actual temperature is 15 below. It's a pet peeve, sorry.
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Gotta disagree. Lived in Minnesota my whole life and I think heat index is worthless...but windchill is quite valuable. But I don't freak out about such things.

Frankly if I'm looking at doing some downhill skiing and the temp is 10. I'd like to know if its going to be 10 or 20 below windchill. I don't ski in 20 below. Afterall, what is weather for...if it doesn't tell you whether its worth spending time outside or not.
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

geezer said:
yeah... well, I just find it annoying. If someone tells me it's 40 below at their house, I wish it had meaning.
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How does it not have meaning? After most of my life here 0 or even 10 above doesn't mean much to me when it's calm, but if the wind is blowing hard there's going to be a noticeable difference.

And as someone that lived in the Middle East, there were days when the heat index made me not want to hit the beach. I think people take the whole, "weather terrorist" thing a bit too seriously. Of course, I only hear that crap on AM1500 and KQ morning show. Go figure.
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

Priceless said:
ostrich_head_in_sand.jpg
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So we're going to talk about the gagging of CERN scientists in relation to the cosmic ray/cloud experiment? Right? 'cause nothing promotes science quite like a gag order.
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

5mn_Major said:
Gotta disagree. Lived in Minnesota my whole life and I think heat index is worthless...but windchill is quite valuable. But I don't freak out about such things.

Frankly if I'm looking at doing some downhill skiing and the temp is 10. I'd like to know if its going to be 10 or 20 below windchill. I don't ski in 20 below. After all, what is weather for...if it doesn't tell you whether its worth spending time outside or not.
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Both the wind chill and heat index are important because their are factors beyond just temperature that impact the body's physiological response to the current environmental conditions (aka weather).

The temperature is what it is, but the wind chill tells you what the temperature is equivalent to on exposed skin and thus how quickly frostbite will occur.
Heat index is a measure of the temperature and humidity levels and is a measure of how easily and efficiently the body can cool itself, providing some measure of the dangers of heat stroke/exhaustion.

They may not be measurable variables directly, but they do serve a purpose and are important numbers when trying to convey what it's like outside in a simple and easy to understand way.
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

Patman said:
So we're going to talk about the gagging of CERN scientists in relation to the cosmic ray/cloud experiment? Right? 'cause nothing promotes science quite like a gag order.
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A gag order in this case saying that the data should not be interpreted not that data should be hidden or kept from the public. (Exactly what he was quoted as saying) Funny how the only relevant pages that can be found on this are "deniers" trying to paint it was some ****ing evidence for global warming. But you don't see any that actually use the results to show that this was ever true.

Got anything else? Want to tell us how theory means random guess?
 
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Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

Neither the environment nor science are important...

China Benefits as US Solar Industry Withers

The bankruptcies of three American solar power companies in the last month, including Solyndra of California on Wednesday, have left China’s industry with a dominant sales position — almost three-fifths of the world’s production capacity — and rapidly declining costs.

Some American, Japanese and European solar companies still have a technological edge over Chinese rivals, but seldom a cost advantage, according to industry analysts.

Loans at very low rates from state-owned banks in Beijing, cheap or free land from local and provincial governments across China, huge economies of scale and other cost advantages have transformed China from a minor player in the solar power industry just a few years ago into the main producer of an increasingly competitive source of electricity.

“The top-tier Chinese firms are kind of the benchmark now,” said Shayle Kann, a managing director of solar power studies at GTM Research, a renewable energy market analysis firm based in Boston. Pricing of solar equipment is determined by the Chinese industry, he said, “and everyone else prices at a premium or discount to them.”

Besides Solyndra, the other two American manufacturers that filed for bankruptcy in August were Evergreen Solar, of Massachusetts, and SpectraWatt, a New York company. Another company, BP Solar, halted manufacturing at its complex in Frederick, Md., last spring.

Those bankruptcies and closings represent almost one-fifth of the solar panel manufacturing capacity in the United States, according to GTM Research.

Solyndra and Evergreen in particular suffered because they pursued unusual technologies whose competitiveness depended on their using less polysilicon, the main material for solar panels. That has become less important because polysilicon prices have tumbled more than 80 percent in the last three years as output has caught up with demand.

Analysts say that two American companies remain strongly placed. One is First Solar, the largest American manufacturer, which uses a different technology but has its biggest factory in Malaysia. The other, SunPower, is much smaller but is an industry leader in the efficiency with which its panels convert sunlight into electricity, so that they sell at a premium to Chinese panels.

But with Beijing heavily supporting its industry, the Chinese companies are forging ahead.
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

5mn_Major said:
Neither the environment nor science are important...

China Benefits as US Solar Industry Withers

The bankruptcies of three American solar power companies in the last month, including Solyndra of California on Wednesday, have left China’s industry with a dominant sales position — almost three-fifths of the world’s production capacity — and rapidly declining costs.

Some American, Japanese and European solar companies still have a technological edge over Chinese rivals, but seldom a cost advantage, according to industry analysts.

Loans at very low rates from state-owned banks in Beijing, cheap or free land from local and provincial governments across China, huge economies of scale and other cost advantages have transformed China from a minor player in the solar power industry just a few years ago into the main producer of an increasingly competitive source of electricity.

“The top-tier Chinese firms are kind of the benchmark now,” said Shayle Kann, a managing director of solar power studies at GTM Research, a renewable energy market analysis firm based in Boston. Pricing of solar equipment is determined by the Chinese industry, he said, “and everyone else prices at a premium or discount to them.”

Besides Solyndra, the other two American manufacturers that filed for bankruptcy in August were Evergreen Solar, of Massachusetts, and SpectraWatt, a New York company. Another company, BP Solar, halted manufacturing at its complex in Frederick, Md., last spring.

Those bankruptcies and closings represent almost one-fifth of the solar panel manufacturing capacity in the United States, according to GTM Research.

Solyndra and Evergreen in particular suffered because they pursued unusual technologies whose competitiveness depended on their using less polysilicon, the main material for solar panels. That has become less important because polysilicon prices have tumbled more than 80 percent in the last three years as output has caught up with demand.

Analysts say that two American companies remain strongly placed. One is First Solar, the largest American manufacturer, which uses a different technology but has its biggest factory in Malaysia. The other, SunPower, is much smaller but is an industry leader in the efficiency with which its panels convert sunlight into electricity, so that they sell at a premium to Chinese panels.

But with Beijing heavily supporting its industry, the Chinese companies are forging ahead.
Click to expand...

Or was it demand(lack of) for the product that shut them down? The prices for a system are still too high to compete with utilities so why bother?
Solyndra had 600 million from the US and likely as much private and still couldn't compete
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

walrus said:
Or was it demand(lack of) for the product that shut them down? The prices for a system are still too high to compete with utilities so why bother?
Solyndra had 600 million from the US and likely as much private and still couldn't compete
Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of solar, but I'm with walrus on this one. When you get $600 million from the government and fail, you're doing it wrong.
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

I am happy to let the Chinese taxpayer subsidise any and all solar installations.
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

Green tech is not alone in the energy sector getting govt aid. Its too bad...this could be the type of turning point we look back at 20 years from now as the US searches for innovation to own.
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

5mn_Major said:
Green tech is not alone in the energy sector getting govt aid. Its too bad...this could be the type of turning point we look back at 20 years from now as the US searches for innovation to own.
Click to expand...
The US is ahead of China in innovation on solar, they can't produce it with the regs in place as cheaply as China. Its all about costs and demand
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

5mn_Major said:
Green tech is not alone in the energy sector getting govt aid. Its too bad...this could be the type of turning point we look back at 20 years from now as the US searches for innovation to own.
Click to expand...
It would be ironic if our industrial spies started stealing their tech for a change.

(In Civ I and II it was cost-effective to just infiltrate a city and "buy" (i.e., steal) tech rather than commit the resources to discovering it yourself. Thankfully, that exploit no longer works.)
 
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Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

walrus said:
The US is ahead of China in innovation on solar, they can't produce it with the regs in place as cheaply as China. Its all about costs and demand
Click to expand...

If only our environmental standards were as low as Communist China's...

beijing-smog.jpg
 
Re: Global Warming -- 4th Edition: Carbonated Planet.

Lagos is giving them a run.

Pollution-in-Lagos.jpg


Equatorial countries are good for solar, too.
 
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