Coal being phased out

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Well at the random moment I grabbed the snapshot above, biofuels were only producing 1 1/2 times as much energy as coal, so pretty underwhelming?

Neil

Is it right to use land to produce biofuels when over 800 million people in the world are going hungry?

Russell

In addition to health issues caused by pollution, there are two other very nasty problems in the pipeline.

1. Burning fossil fuels has resulted in a heat insulating layer forming in the upper atmosphere that - just like a greenhouse - allows heat from the sun to enter whilst trapping it at night. As a result the whole world is heating up, hurting agriculture and causing turbulent weather - more very hot days, more very cold days, more droughts, more downpours, and more violent storms. Melting of the icecaps is causing sea levels to rise with risk of massive flooding in low lying areas. The political consequences of climate change are unpredictable, because nations fight for food and water while individuals emigrate.
2. Equally challenging is the end of cheap energy is in sight. Reserves are running down whilst demand for coal, oil and gas is rising. Perhaps because energy supply has been largely assured in the UK for the last 250 years, too many assume the joy ride can continue forever. Wrong! Fossil fuels were created by geological processes taking millions of years to complete and are not being replenished. When the fuel runs out the party is over, simple. We're not suddenly going to wake up one morning and find the tank empty. More likely, prices will rise slowly at first, then much more steeply. Unless something is done, large numbers of people who rely on cheap transport for work are in trouble. How many of us could afford to drive an internal combustion car if fuel cost £10 a litre, and prices were set to rise forever?

The doomsday scenario is a world dominated by vicious fights for resources, large areas rendered barren by climate change, mass population movements, weather extremes, and shortages of everything from fertilizers to steel and concrete. Cheap food and goods are only possible because energy is cheap. As are decent pensions.

More hopefully, nations will recognise the timely need to secure energy from other sources, mostly natural, but with a percentage of nuclear. A lot of energy is wasted at the moment. Not all bad news; there are considerable advantages in switching to cleaner energy including it can be considerably cheaper. For example, once an efficient solar farm has paid off its initial costs, the electricity it produces is both clean and free.

Like it or not change is coming. The clock is ticking. Coal and oil has been an immense boon to mankind, but its time for wise virgins to come up with alternatives, and soon. Far from being stupid, I suggest UK policy is smarter than average. Economies with no alternative to fossil fuels are likely to crash. Economies that adapt and prepare for the new situation have a good chance of staying on top, or at least managing a soft landing!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 21/02/2020 17:08:02

The move to biofuels is a good example of the law of unintended consequenses.

Just to throw a little wood on the fire! I thought that I recently heard that a new coal mine has been given planning permission in Cumbria.

David

Well put, Dave. The days of the old fogey energy luddites are numbered. Twenty years and most will be dead. Greta Thunberg is of the generation who will likely take over the mess that the last generations have made. Her generation are simply looking ahead and not liking what will happen if nothing is done about the situation.

Who is right - Trump or Thunberg - will be sorted out in the next few years. I think know it will be Greta, not luddite trump.

Investment world-wide is being withdrawn from new coal projects, China is building far more renewable energy generators than anywhere else in the planet - they now know about wearing face masks because of airborne particulates. Even Australians want their government to stop sticking their heads in the sand - they have had their ‘wake up call’ just recently - and stop new coal investment.

Even in the US, most states are quietly ignoring trump and building renewable replacements for coal fired electricity.

Climate change/global warming is just the latest and largest of the messes that humans have inflicted on themselves or the planet. Think DDT, foot and mouth, pesticide toxicity, nuclear accidents and a host of others. Just look at the destruction of habitats, loss of species, etc - all caused by human activity.

Meanwhile power stations will be burning coal to produce our electricity. To kiln dry our wood, I just keep mine for years. It warms me many times, when cutting/splitting and stacking. Oh then I burn it.

It seems that people whinging about climate change get much more airtime than the youngsters who come up innovative solutions to environment and climate problems. In the last 50-60 years that I have been paying attention there have been many warnings from science that have been overturned at a later date. I do feel slightly wary about the claims and counterclaims regarding climate change. Nature may well be up to the task of saving the planet but maybe humans will be eliminated for messing up this beautiful planet. In the man versus nature battle I will put my money on nature. Species loss has always happened before man arrived and made his presence felt. The end of the earth will be when the sun goes out, I doubt that mans activities will kill the planet but may change things somewhat.

Mike

I must admit I read this thread, and was left wondering if it all makes any difference - where I live (somewhere in Europe), 90% of the populace burns wood for ALL heating. The wood is sourced from naturally grown forests, mostly oak and ash - when did you last see a naturally grown oak forest? There is NO replanting scheme, and although estimates vary, most of the wood is illegally cut - a huge proportion is taken by Austrian and Hungarian companies who export the wood illegally, after paying the appropriate kickbacks to local councils - this is all well-documented in the press and internet, and several reporters and investigators have been killed investigating this business - to make matters worse, these thieves only take the trunks - they remove all extraneous branches and the upper parts of trunks, and leave them to rot. I am sure I will receive comments rubbishing this - they will be wrong, it does happen, and there is no reputable authority here doing anything about it.

The remaining 10% of the population burns imported natural gas, at ever increasing prices.

A very small amount of coal is available, and perhaps it is as well only a small amount is available. If left outside to get wet, it develops a yellow powdery coat - I'm no chemist, but I have to wonder if this is sulphur. It certainly stinks of sulphur when it is burned.

So as you can imagine, the airborne pollution on a cold day has to be smelled to be believed, so its hard to believe that a small number of people using environmentally unfriendly heating systems in the UK will make much difference.

Apropos electric cars - can anyone explain clearly why generating electricity remotely and piping it to the vehicle is environmentally friendly? You will still use either fossil fuel burning or nuclear power stations to develop the amount of power needed for all the electric cars, yet society is gradually turning against both these methods of generation - or is it a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'?

There is no such thing as smokeless coal, they are just hiding the smoke and burning wood only releases the CO2 that the tree absorbed whilst growing. I shall continue to burn logs and coal!

As Neil has said it is only house coal that is being phased out Anthracite and Steam Coal should still be available.

Also according to old copies of ME artificial alternatives were regularly being recommended to modellers, particularly in the US.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 21/02/2020 20:27:55

Duplicate post

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 21/02/2020 20:27:33

Just to correct a few misconceptions here,

CO2 is heavier than air, it does not get to the upper atmosphere.

CO2 is at present 0.04% of the atmosphere, which is less than it has been for most of the last 10,000 years, At 180ppm, plants start to die off.

The claimed rise in temperature since 1900 is between 0.6 and 1.2 degrees depending on who you read.

More CO2 helps agriculture, it is pumped into commercial greenhouses at 1000ppm, and the plants use less water.

We have not had more hot days, and no one is willing to explain how global warming can produce cold days.

The planet is not hotter that it has ever been, this happened globally in the 1930's and it was much hotter during the medieval warm period (qv), and much colder during the little ice age (qv), which ended about 1860.

By any metric, in any area you choose, there is actually less extreme weather, and it is WEATHER, not climate.

The climate has always changed, there has been 40 deg of warming between now and the last ice age.

Nils-Axel Morner (qv) has just resigned from the IPCC where he was head of the sea level commitee, after submitting a report to the IPCC which they rejected. The report shows that sea level has been rising in a linear fashion all around Europe at the rate of about 1mm per year for at least the last fifty years, and that there is no rise at all in the pacific.

At the end of the last ice age, over a 10,00 year period, sea level rose over 400 feet.

We have been studying the polar ice caps since at least the mid 1800's and it is known that the amount of ice is cyclical with defined maximums and minimums The ice at both the poles has not gone beyond the minimum at any time. The ice at the north pole is floating sea ice, if it were all to melt, sea level would go down, as water expands when it freezes, and it therefore displaces more water than it actually contains. The numbers of polar bear have increased rapidly over the last 7 years, they do not live on the ice, they go onto the ice to hunt, and they have been very succesful, the more seal, the more polar bears.

Acidification of the seas? NOT POSSIBLE the sea floor consists of the alkaline remains of millions of years worth of sea creatures who turned CO2 into calcium and is deposited in layers thousands of feet thick. This acts as an acidification buffer, and it would have to be all dissolved before the alkalinity could change.

All this is factual simple physics, and taken from recorded data, and can be checked by anyone with a computer. Stop reading the headlines and start checking the facts. The global warming scam is beginning to unravel itself. In the tropical rain forests of the precambrian period, when there was the greatest explosion of life ever, and species became more numerous and diverse than ever before, the geological record tells us that atmospheric CO2 was at about 7000ppm. As far as plant life is concerned 400ppm is virtually starvation level. the planet has greened since the rise in CO2, even in semi desert areas. It could be seen as foolish for carbon based life forms, which is what all life on earth is, to mess around with the amount of available carbon.

I have deep reservations about much that is said and reported on global warming. The current and often left-wing attitude to anyone that does not believe in global warming is that you are not just wrong, you are bad as well. Just try getting university grant these days to produce evidence against global warming. On the other hand you could easily be forced out of your university job because you hold the "wrong" views

As a confirmed cynic I note that while there is great attention paid to saving the planet through getting rid of items like plastic cups but total silence on the destruction of the amazon forest and the indonesian/borneo rainforests. The amazon is said to produce 16% of the worlds oxygen - worth bothering about? Or is this aspect of global warming just too difficult to deal with?

A look at the world atlas reveals the whole global warming hoax - there are much bigger land areas in the north of the planet than in most of the areas now popular for human habitation. If the planet does warm to any great extent the human population will just migrate to what are currently the frozen north parts of the planet.

Chas

To the last two posters, you wouldn't show your bare arses and balls in public. Please desist from showing your ignorance in public as well.

There is a great deal of fuss about the rain forest, it is just that the media is focussing on the fires and floods for the next few weeks.

The greatest threat from global warming is not the migration, it is the starvation. Currently, most of the worlds food is produced in a fairly narrow band of land either side of the equator. when this land heats up and becomes unsuitable for crops, the world will starve. The land that will be 'unlocked' by the warming is very low in the nutrients and minerals needed to grow food crops and will not be able to produce nearly the quantities we will need. Not to mention, the complete lack of infrastructure to house all the displaced people.

Climate change is not a hoax, it is a working theory and so it is often changed to suit the new data. That doesn't mean it isn't happening. We do not know if we are to blame for it but I would rather try to change society to consume less and become friendlier in the hope it reverses these dangerous trends. Would you rather be living comfortably in the future or fighting for survival while the 'hippies' say "I told you so"?

Way back in the 30's I think (no I don't remember!) there was an article in ME about an electrically heated boiler, insulated electrode down the connected to live, boiler shell connected to neutral and away you go. I think it had an isolation transformer, but still sounds a bit dodgy. One of the electrical engineers at work reckoned that when they were out on site they would hammer 2 nails through a piece of wood, connect to the mains and use it for making tea

Just to correct a few misconceptions here? Really?

** CO2 is heavier than air, it does not get to the upper atmosphere.

Ozone is heavier than air yet it loiters in the upper atmosphere providing ultraviolet radiation protection but that can't be happening?. CO2 is miscible in air so with a windless atmosphere, gravity would see a greater concentration at lower altitudes. It is a higher order problem of computational fluid mechanics to determine the altitudes where the CO2 ends up being distributed after agitation by the wind and weather.

High altitude CO2 is emitted by airplanes in a non trivial manner! And why does CO2 matter? Because it stops infra red heat radiation from the earth. That heat is trapped pretty much the same irrespective of the CO2 altitude.

** CO2 is at present 0.04% of the atmosphere, which is less than it has been for most of the last 10,000 years, At 180ppm, plants start to die off.
Wildly wrong (and the 180 ppm is the lower limit for plants to die off).

** The claimed rise in temperature since 1900 is between 0.6 and 1.2 degrees depending on who you read.
Increasing temperature melts the ice caps causing less sunlight to be reflected, more heat to be absorbed and more melting of the ice caps. This is a positive feedback loop that makes me happy to be in my 60s but sorry for my kids.
Even worse the rising temperatures are liberating methane from frozen gas hydrates so still more positive feedback.

The earth does have some negative feedback systems that try to stabilize the climate. The one we in the UK are most familiar with is the Gulf Stream. Paradoxically the increased Polar temperatures are reducing the heat flow from the Caribbean to the UK and then the Polar regions. this means that the UK gets colder weather (at least initially) as the earth warms.

** More CO2 helps agriculture, it is pumped into commercial greenhouses at 1000ppm, and the plants use less water.

Interesting but completely irrelevant.

** We have not had more hot days, and no one is willing to explain how global warming can produce cold days.

I keep on hearing of record monthly temperatures as reported by the Met Office. Are they wrong?

Seriously? How can you have a cold day with global warming? This sounds like an utterance from Donald Trump.

** The planet is not hotter that it has ever been, this happened globally in the 1930's and it was much hotter during the medieval warm period (qv), and much colder during the little ice age (qv), which ended about 1860.

Where do you pull your facts from?

That's enough from me. If I continue I'll only get more upset when the posting ends up too long to be uploaded.

Best regards all, Colin

Edited By Colin Whittaker on 22/02/2020 04:31:31

Edited By Colin Whittaker on 22/02/2020 04:34:14

Edited By Colin Whittaker on 22/02/2020 04:36:39