Carbon dioxide rise in the atmosphere

All this talk about respiration by organisms. number of people, number of buffalo existing 200 years ago. All that is recycling. That has been a self correcting system for hundreds of thousands of years. Then came the Industrial Revolution and 200 years later, here we are questioning the value of carbon dating of shrouds?

The real culprit is our INDUSTRIAL use of fosil fuels. The numbers are indisputable, IMO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere

Add to this the deforestation lowering the earth's ecosystem's ability to absorb CO2 and release Oxygen just helps the problem.

It is not the natural fluxuations that are the problem. It is the ADDITION of previously sequestered CO2 that is the problem. And except for an occasional volcanic eruption, it is man's industries which are spewing CO2 into the air by the millions of TONS, each year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth's_atmosphere#Measuring_ancient-Earth_carbon_dioxide_concentration

 

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You are right that fossil fuel is not the only thing to blame. As others have said, it is the main contributor.

From about 1850 until the 1950s there was ample evidence to infer that burning fossil fuels was exacerbating the natural causes to the end of the last glacial period. (That is, scientists wanted to know what caused the "end of the last ice age", an inquiry led by Fourier in 1824, leading to his discovery of the Greenhouse Effect).

But by 1958, the establishment of measuring stations at Mauna Loa and elsewhere, capable of tracking local changes in CO2, confimed that the earlier conclusions were correct. (Industrial output was capable of causing climate change.)

In short, the slope of the curve is too steep to attribute this merely to human matabolism. Of course, the other glaring problem is: where do you shove all of that CO2 which is artificially produced? Therein lies the rub.

Also note that by the end of WWII, oceanographer Roger Revelle had discovered the the amount of natural CO2 uptake by the oceans had reached saturation. Where do we put all that CO2 produced during the industrial surge that accompanied the war? In that bucket that accounts for the huge amounts of gas required to saturate the oceans.

Roger Revelle was Al Gore's professor at one point. That fact has no bearing on the scientific adequacy of the work done since 1824 to understand the ramifications of drilling for sequestered carbon and liberating it. It just bears on the politics which has obscured the science from the purview of average voters. We should be nearly 100% convinced that this science is about as good as it gets - no different from the methods or motives used in medicine, engineering or any other non-controversial topic. And having been through horrors like in WWII, we should never let fraudulent nationalism and religiosity replace acedemics, research and the quest for the truth.

 

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I meant "academics" of course, although a pack of aces (acedemics?) could help.

 

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Moving in the right direction, but still a long way to go. Also China has about 100 super critical steam generators on line or under constuction. They get about 50% more KWHs from each lump of coal. Several western countries are now adopting /copying / this Chinese perfected technology. Here is a pair on line:

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Each unit has > 1GW capacity. China has for historical reasons a terrible air polution problem but is very agressively reducing it. Not only by burning less coal annually but also world's greatest installer of wind and PV systems. China is a technology leader in both PV and wind:

Wind generators installed in high-altitude region:

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Unusually tall towers are used for greater output with same swept area.
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In 2015, 25% of all the world's PV instalation, (by energy produced) will be in China!

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Fines and shut-down of polluters are also being used:

Some CEOs will do jail time. I don't think that happens in the USA. China is quite serious about leaving a less polluted world to the next generation. For example:

 

Well I think supercritical steam turbines have been around for a couple of decades actually: I recall seeing Mitsubishi selling them at least 10 years ago. The efficiency is over 50%, on a par with the crosshead diesel engine and the combined cycle gas/steam turbine. But of course you can't run a combined cycle set on coal, so for that fuel I imagine supercritical steam is best. Though better still to avoid coal of course.

 

Yes but they were not "ultra super" critical steam systems. The first 1 GW ultra-supercritical coal-fired unit was placed in operation at the end of 2006 at the Zhejiang Yuhuan Power Plant.

That is the first sentence of the 2nd quote here: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/bric-news-comments.84022/page-46#post-3336510
Please note that comes from http://cornerstonemag.net/the-development-strategy-for-coal-fired-power-generation-in-china/
not a chinese source, but a journal mainly concerned with new coal energy technology.

If you go to that cornerstone link and click on their "about us" you will read:

" Cornerstone is a high profile, authoritative, international coal magazine, which is on the desk of every key decision maker in the energy, environment and development sectors. Cornerstone is the credible articulation of coal’s continuing critical role in the world’s energy mix. "

 

Whose design was the 2006 installation, then? I cannot see from the source you provided whether it originated from China or elsewhere.

 

It was all Chinese, but English experts helped with some of the tricky metalurgy of the boiler pipes. They thus new of the Chinese advance before others, and have licensed the Chinese developed technology - Will be the first, outside of China, to get > 50% more KWH from each lump of coal. Although initially China needed foreign help with the metalurgy of boiler pipes for 700 C temperatire, now it is leading the way there too, but still welcoming foreign ideas too.

China's CCP is pouring a lot of money and effort into more efficient use of its coal - building more than one new Ultra SupperCritical Steam power plant per month!

 

Yes but some organisation, either a Chinese company or a government organisation, with a name, must have been responsible for it. Who? And do you have a source for your information?

P.S. This self-congratulatory guff about "50% more from a lump of coal" is rubbish, obviously. That would imply that current technology only gets about 35% thermal efficiency, which conventional steam plants have exceeded for over half a century. The gain of this new design will be only a few percent compared to existing supercritical technology.

 

Well that depends up what is the reference. China and many other countries do have 50+ year old plants that do not get even 35% of the chemical energy in the coal converted into KWHs. These old plants are the first to be closed and many have been.

 

Well sure, but it is misleading puffery for the article to suggest - as it does - that some kind of Chinese technical breakthrough has occurred which yields a benefit of 50% better energy conversion.

And what about a name for the organisation supposedly responsible for this new design?

 

I don't have more time now to try to find it. (wasted nearly an hour trying already) but in article I read, some time ago, a particular Chinese person was called the "father" of the early Chinese efforts at USCS power. In a few days, I will resume hunt for that article.

 

Thanks, I'd appreciate it. I'm all for giving credit where credit is due, but the tone of the article makes me suspect that there may not be as much originality in all this as they like to make out. Also if there really is a new global player in the high tech steam turbine business I'd like to know the name, as it is one we can expect to hear more of future.

 

What can you do about Global Warming?

Probably best for health and global warming is to slim down (eat less & exercise more) and eat locally produced food, not California produced (unless you live near those farms that make nearly half of US fruit and vegetables). Your own back-yard garden would be a big help, if you mulch grass clippings and food waste for fertilizing it and use no chemical fertilizers any where.

For your protein you could raise chickens (Their eggs are good for you too if you are trim and fit). As a kid for about a year, we raised rabbits too*, but few can do that now. Brazil has world's largest cattle herd, gets ~85% of it electric power from hydro-electric dams and less than 7% from fossil fuels. (Natural gas "peaking units.") We drive mostly with slightly "CO2 negative" sugar cane alcohol fueled cars. Thus, the cattle are Brazil's main source of GHGs. CO2 and CH4 comes out of both ends of the cow (they belch a lot).

* Dad was an MD with rather poor patients. Many paid him in produce (jars of pickles especially) and meat. We had to rent a small locker for frozen food as deer season filled it, with dad never firing a shot. A few home smoked hams came our way each year too.

PS: For long-term sustainability (without chemical fertilizers) your grass should be partially clover, "fixing" atmospheric N2.

 

Back more on subject, here is what is so scary about CO2 release:

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more than 1/4 will still be in the air after 100 years, 17% after 500 years, etc.

This is why it is so important to cease using gasoline NOW - sugar cane alcohol, is slightly "CO2 net negative" The technology has 30+ years of economical demonstration in Brazil, but big oil is blocking its adoption, for obvious reasons - huge investment in lobbying even got importation of alcohol from tropical countries made illegal by US Congress.

To convert your gasoline car to one running on alcohol is mainly a few gaskets need to be changed and fuel injection system re-programed - total cost no more than $300. - A tiny fraction of the cost of the batteries any electric vehicle needs. The modern "flex-fuel" cars in Brazil have a fuel sensor that tells the gasoline to alcohol fractions and sets the injector system to match that for optimum performnce (and pure alcohol gives about 4% more HP in the engine as well is cheaper per mile driven.)

Here is recent talk by oil company CEO:

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In other words: Fuck your grandchildren, we want our profits now.

 

Birds fly in the sky.... its about over million million years but when human is trying to fly it does harm to our envaironment and not only it. its an example. we should not use our invention that does harm to our ecology and environment.

 

So what? As if it would be horrible pollution, and not one of the best fertilizers for plant growth.

Making the Earth colder is not really a problem at all, artificial air pollution will do it. Big volcanoes are known to reduce global temperature. So, if climate change would really have catastrophic consequences, one could solve this problem. Up to now, it is not really a problem.

 

Yes, good for insects, bad for humans.

Artificial air pollution is the main cause for GW; are you suggesting that increasing artifial air pollution will bring about a cooling? How dense do you want this pollution to be to prevent any warming radiation from the sun to reach the surface and not trap warmth generated by the earth itself (greenhouse effect)?
304,184,374,215 Solar energy striking Earth today (MWh) http://www.worldometers.info/

And as to your claim that up to now we have not had a really big problem, ask the millions of people who have already been affected by increasingly violent weather patterns.

 

Plant growth bad for humans? Why this?

It is CO2 which is claimed to be a cause of GW. If it really plays a big role is not that certain. Anyway, the effect is a logarithmic one. To reach on degree or so of global warming, you have to double CO2. For the next degree, you have to double it again.
What brings cooling is, instead, rather unspecific, simply dust would do the job.

I don't care about numbers, what is known is that big volcanoes have caused some cooling.

You want to impress a mathematician with numbers? Ok, here are a few more: 45795825847052578924732407349134247394734374895768970597656975689357967549765
This number makes no sense, in this aspect comparable with your number, but is longer than your, and non only bold but even underscored!!!!111.

Once this is climate change, we are all effected. So I ask myself. I'm not yet impressed.