As Curt points out in his post a round up of the AGW and energy news, the debate is raging in Australia , where they are finding resistance to their AGW mandates in the wake of Dave Evans (the man who designed FullCAM – the model that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol) – switch from proponent to skeptic
Meanwhile, enviros and agenda driven pols around the world do their level best to halt any constructive means of affordable, clean energy production, as well as increasing the world’s supply of oil.
There’s no dearth of “cures” offered by “the debate is settled” crowd. And one of these is everyone’s favorite – the electric car. To this I can only say… where is the logic?
To draw the parallel between the “problem” and “cure”, we need to talk water vapor. According to the pro AGW EurCarbon
Greenhouse gases (GHG) are gaseous components of the atmosphere that contribute to the greenhouse effect. The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide, which causes between 9-26%; and ozone, which causes between 3-7%, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, and chlorofluorocarbons. The greenhouse gases, once in the atmosphere, do not remain there eternally. They can be withdrawn from the atmosphere:
Some of the beef of many skeptics is that water vapor is not included as mitigating factor in the IPCC’s “consensus” of perceived global warming – now called “climate change” since the 10 year global cooling, most likely to protect the activists/alarmists’ credibility.
EurCarbon argues that naturally occuring water vapor isn’t a factor since it’s duration in the atmostphere is short term (days) and is removed via condensation and precipitation (assuming that we are not in drought conditions, I would guess) while CO2/carbon dioxide is a variable. Again, according to them…
CO2 duration stay is variable (approximately 200-450 years) and its global warming potential (GWP) is defined as 1.
Methane duration stay is 12 +/- 3 years and a GWP of 22 (meaning that it has 22 times the warming ability of carbon dioxide)
Nitrous oxide has a duration stay of 120 years and a GWP of 310
CFC-12 has a duration stay of 102 years and a GWP between 6200 and 7100
HCFC-22 has a duration stay of 12.1 years and a GWP between 1300 and 1400
Tetrafluoromethane has a duration stay of 50,000 years and a GWP of 6500
Sulfur hexafluoride has a duration stay of 3,200 years and a GWP of 23900.
Despite CO2s low rating, and ratio compared to water vapor, per the pro AGW proponents, it’s the main culprit attacked. Which now brings me to one of their solutions… electric cars for everyone.
Yet the hydrogen/electric car engineering emits… uh… water vapor… the single largest greenhouse gas effect. Should the world revert to all electric cars, that’s a lot of water vapor emitted that is dependent on condensation and rain for removal.
So the question that comes to my mind… just what bright lightbulb thinks it’s a great idea to change the world to cars emitting an increased amount of water vapor (the largest contributor to warming), and then depend on preciptation to remove that water vapor?
Let’s pile on more to their arguments… AGW proponents seem to suggest that our action is necessary to reduce reduce tropical storm activity (BS in itself) and other weather disasters Yet those typhoons and hurricanes they wish to control are a natural factor in cleaning out the high content of water vapor, burying it in the oceans. And if we’re adding more water vapor to the atmosphere, exactly how do they propose this will dissipate without falling back to the earth, producing more violent snow and rain storms, flooding, and other natural disasters?
This strikes me as counterproductive, especially since they are talking about adding massive amounts of water vapor with the electric car emissions.
In fact, this whole notion seems to run contrary to AGU’s explanation of Water Vapor in the Climate System.
There are many atmospheric greenhouse gases, some naturally occurring and some resulting from industrial activities, but probably the most important greenhouse gas is water vapor. Water vapor is involved in an important climate feedback loop. As the temperature of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere increases, the atmosphere is able to hold more water vapor. The additional water vapor, acting as a greenhouse gas, absorbs energy that would otherwise escape to space and so causes further warming.
Then we come to the known anomalies of measuring water vapor, and in which level of the atmosphere it is concentrated. It’s variance in not only amounts, but the distribution over the globe, can be seen in as little as minutes, to decades. Again, from the AGU website on water vapor, they fully admit that better ways to study measurements and the water vapor distribution is required to assess the largest contributor to greenhouse gases and it’s effect on climate.
There are questions about how well the current models, both those used in climate studies and those used in forecasting the daily weather, treat water vapor. Modeling would be improved by systematic examination of models’s treatment of water vapor in light of what is now known of its distributions. Some of the questions arise because of the lack of good water vapor observations. The likely benefits of improved water vapor data include better weather forecasts as well as improved climate models.
Different types of measurements are complementary and useful. The challenge is how best to merge the available information on water vapor distribution into an improved description of the time and space variations of water vapor to enhance climate studies.
Since water vapor represents the largest contributor, it seems that is further proof that alarmists are jumping the gun with proposed “cures” for climate control… a rather lofty goal in itself.
Instead… in the effort to curb the global warming that is really global cooling in the past decade… we’re planning on releasing vast amounts more water vapor into the atmosphere. And all without a full understanding of how this will affect climate.
I’m no scientist nor chemist, but there’s something that strikes me as odd here. If the atmosphere will hold less water vapor if we cool the planet, but yet we’re planning on releasing more of it that may end up in the upper atmosphere, aren’t we risking a man-made ice age?? Read more to see how I get to that…
ScienceDaily has a couple of articles about the dangers of increasing water vapor levels… not only those we are proposing with a world filled with electric car emissions, but also methane (which turns to water vapor in the atmosphere). From an April 2001 article, NASA has warned that increasing water vapor in the stratopshere may delay ozone recovery, and accelerate climate change. And this is from a AGW believer, as he states:
“Climate models also indicate that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane may enhance the transport of water into the stratosphere. Though not fully understood, the increased transport of water vapor to the stratosphere seems likely to have been induced by human activities.
“Rising greenhouse gas emissions account for all or part of the water vapor increase,” said Shindell, “which causes stratospheric ozone destruction.”
So now we’re discussing water vapor present in the upper layers of the earth’s atmosphere as an effect. A week later, another article was published in the Science Daily, “Most-Serious Greenhouse Gas Is Increasing, International Study Finds”.
“Half the increase in the stratosphere can be traced to human-induced increases in methane, which turns into water vapor at high altitudes, but the other half is a mystery,” said Mote. “Part of the increase must have occurred as a result of changes in the tropical tropopause, a region about 10 miles above the equator, that acts as a valve that allows air into the stratosphere.”
Readings of water vapor increases 3 to 10 miles up are more ambiguous, Mote said.
~~~
“A wetter and colder stratosphere means more polar stratospheric clouds, which contribute to the seasonal appearance of the ozone hole,” said James Holton, UW atmospheric sciences chairman and expert on stratospheric water vapor. “These trends, if they continue, would extend the period when we have to be concerned about rapid ozone depletion.”
Atmospheric heating happens when the Earth’s atmosphere and surface absorb solar radiation, while cooling occurs when thermal infrared radiation escapes the atmosphere and goes into space. If certain key gases that absorb and emit infrared radiation, the most important being water vapor and carbon dioxide, were not present in the atmosphere, Earth’s temperature would cool to minus 19 degrees celsius, or minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit. The global annual mean temperature is 14 degrees celsius.
Consider that statement… CO2 and water vapor keep us from being at a mean average of 2F degrees… I’d say that’s an ice age. Yet here we are, sans complete science on water vapor, in a race to increasing water vapor, and decreasing CO2…. two necessary ingredients for our liveable climate. How do we know what that change in balance will do? Ice age? Or perhaps even more warming instead?
In the NASA site version of the same story, Shindell is quoted:
“It’s hard to tell if those great international agreements [to ban CFCs] work if we don’t understand the other big things that are going on in the stratosphere, such as increases in greenhouse gases and water vapor,” Shindell said. The stratosphere is a dry atmospheric layer between 6 and 30 miles (9.7 and 48.3 kilometers) up where most ozone exists.
~~~
One simulation isolated the impacts of CFCs on ozone, and showed that as CFCs decline, by the year 2040 overall ozone makes close to a full recovery from current low levels. When CFCs, water vapor and temperature changes were all combined in a computer model, by 2040, overall ozone levels recovered only slightly from their current low point.
These computer simulations suggest that climate change from greenhouse gases may greatly slow any anticipated ozone recovery. Shindell said the effects of climate change need to be better accounted for as scientists and others try to track the success of international agreements, like the 1987 Montreal Protocol that banned CFCs.
The paper appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres.
It can be simply said that what we know most of water vapor is that we know very little … nor have we had adequate technology and accurate measurements to use to study of it’s effects with any degrees of accuracy.
With this increased focus on water vapor, we can also conclude that legislative mandates and cures thrust upon the global community – all with very damaging economic repercussions – are extremely premature. Needless to say, it’s entirely possible their cures are worse than the problem they suggest exists.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
Water vapor accounts for about 95% of the Earth’s greenhouse effect, without water vapor(clouds), Earth would be a frozen snowball.
Electric cars work great, batteries not included.
IMHO — Hydrogen will power the transport future, nuclear power will generate the hydrogen — In about 30-50 years. BMW has had a car running on hydrogen for years, it uses standard automotive technology for the most part, except the fuel and tanks needed. Airplanes, they are on their own …
There was a study of a few weeks back that showed Antarctica was about 30 degrees centigrade warmer than it is today … they found proof in the fossils under the ice.
What we know about the Earth’s climate, you could write a book. What we don’t know would fill a library.
July 1989 was the first UN pronouncement that we only had ten years to reverse global warming or Earth was finished. So we are already toast, what’s the problem.
I understand that water vapor helps warm the planet, Bill tb. However increasing the water vapor by making all vehicles emit water vapor seems counter productive… it’s increasing that same gas in the air, thus increasing the likelihood of warming, using their own arguments.
Now, INRE the opposite effect…. the more water vapor that that works it’s way into the stratosphere, the more damage it can do to the ozone layer, or slow any recovery…. but would still “warm” the planet.
So now, barring any natural events, we have all this extra water vapor in the air, and less CO2… another necessary ingredient for the “balance” as it absorbs the infrared radiation.
Now, what happens when a sulfur rich volcano blows, sending SO2 up into the water vapor laden stratosphere?
If all that sulfur is combining with an heavier water vapor level, there’s going to be a longer time for these droplet clouds to break up… thus global cooling, or perhaps an ice age.
“However increasing the water vapor by making all vehicles emit water vapor seems counter productive… it’s increasing that same gas in the air, thus increasing the likelihood of warming, using their own arguments.” — MataHarley
Don’t worry, there is only so much moisture the atmosphere can hold before it forms clouds and comes out as rain or snow. Our contribution to the overall water concentration in the atmosphere would be even less significant than our contribution to CO2.
Also, if you have refs for the chemistry you are speculating about, I would like to see them. Thanks.
I think my questions here are the effects of a ratio that drops the CO2, and increased water vapor. The steam emissions for the electric car are water vapor. How much they emit, I don’t know as I’ve not seen stats. And I’ve not even touched on what a world of electric cars will do to the water resources.
Batteries? Toyota and Honda are using the NiMH versions that are rechargable, so they recycle to minimize the disposal. However they are exploring and anticipating that lithium batteries, with a longer life, may be ready in 5 years. However those are toxic/hazardous waste and present disposal problems. Not to mention they must be fully discharged before discarding.
The links above in the post lead to the water vapor data, Yon. What I’m concentrating is the water vapor that gets pushed into the stratosphere. What they all agree upon is that the more water vapor, the more the warming.
You suggest that what these cars will emit total may make not significant addition. And that may be true.
But since the climate is a combo of both CO2 to absorb infrared radiation, and water vapor for warming, what happens when we drastically alter that ratio… adding more water vapor and reducing the CO2. Then add the SO2 from natural volcanic events, and what will we have as a result?
Then back to the water resources needed for these cars. According to a Popular Mechanics article on these plug in cars, they take 318 gallons of water. Or, “threefold the water consumption and 17 times the water withdrawal of gasoline miles.”
Uh… don’t think we can conserve much more on washers and low flush toilets to make up for that usage…. And fresh water is almost as precious, if not more, than oil as many areas water useage far outweighs their precipitation.
I don’t know the answers here. That’s why my post is asking… is the “cure” worse than the perceived “problem” because of what we don’t know? It’s only in the last couple of years they are working on better measurements for the stratosphere. Bu I think there are many questions about that technology that need to be answered before the world makes any commitments to head in that direction.
They want to keep sending up the weather balloons up from Colorado, but they are sent to cut that funding and stop that inexpensive measure. “Settled science” in their minds, I guess…
Water Vapor from hydrogen cars nixes them as the solution.
We can’t burn coal or other fossil fuels.
Nuclear power is verboten.
We can’t all ride bicycles (except in the world of that one idiot who commented here recently).
There’s only one way to save the planet:
http://www.vhemt.org/
Liberals: won’t you show us the way and go first?
Please!
@MataHarley
SO, … IT SHOULDN’T BE A PROBLEM!
However, as per the PopSci article you site, by converting corn to ethanol not only do we burn up our food reserves, but we pour out our water reserves to grow the corn. That’s a real problem. Only Leftists could come up with such a perverted destructive use of vital resources!
I think you got my point now, Yon… LOL Meaning, of course their “cure” vs their “problem”.
Perhaps I never made myself clear from the beginning. But I just couldn’t get why, for the life of me, if they believe in global warming – and that the bulk of that warming is caused from water vapor (which they choose to ignore but is a “scientific consensus” LOL) – why the hell make cars that emit water vapor?
Following their logic, the logic dictates they are off on the wrong tangent.
You see, I wasn’t so concerned about adding that water vapor. But then I may be concerned if we added more water vapor artifically, reduced the CO2 ratio, and found out we were in some predicament no one thought of. Just don’t make sense, ya know.
Because, as you mentioned, they found that the errors with the climate models that resulted in the overheating of Antartica is because they *overestimated* the water vapor, based on the guestimate of CO2 level ratios. Is there a valid ratio that exists, I wonder? I see it’s 30-60 now, but can be over 100 to 1 as well. But the differences? Dunno…
This, naturally, brought me to the conclusion that they might actually be creating, instead of solving a problem. Because what they suggest will add more water vapor to the atmosphere, and thus increase warming and the amount of that in the stratosphere.. which can then be elongating the natural correction for volcanic eruptions.
Did I do better in ‘splaining myself this time? LOL
Now, add to that the increased usage of fresh water for electric cars, Yon. We drain another integral resource that doesn’t get enough attentions as a dwindling supply… except, of course, when they want to mandate front loading washers and low flush toilets. Next thing you know, they’ll mandate shower heads limiting water output.
@MataHarley
I let myself get too distracted by the concern you express here…
” But then I may be concerned if we added more water vapor artifically, reduced the CO2 ratio, and found out we were in some predicament no one thought of.”
…and, I repeat, there’s not to worry about. Really. But then, according to their twisted “logic” there SHOULD be. I’m embarassed I missed that part of your argument. It is such an excellent point.
I shall accept your cyber comfort with gratitude, Yon…. :0) And welcome to Mata’s “excellent adventure”. Your contributions have been more than worthy with data and healthy – if not “point missed” input.
@MataHarley
Here is a link that explains the greenhouse effect.
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
The parts that I think might be most relevant here are under the indicated headings…
1.) “Well, how much does carbon dioxide heat the Earth?”
(and note that the magnitude of the effect of CO2 is NOT proportional to increasing concentration, but additional effects decrease with every addition.)
2.) “Sounds reasonable — we did say water vapor was the most important greenhouse gas
Yes and no. While it is intuitively reasonable that the most prolific and important greenhouse gas could act as a magnifier there is no evidence that it does. In fact water vapor is self limiting because it precipitates out as rain and snow and its effect also varies as cloud, with more bright low cloud acting as a cooling effect.”
3.) “So, humans aren’t affecting the planet or its temperature.
Whoa! We didn’t say that at all. “
But it’s all good stuff, and some other sections might address your concerns better, so don’t limit yourself to just those.
p.s., -LOL, and thanks.
That’s a link that has already been long archived and used… even on this post, Yon. As a matter of fact, Steve Milloy was just on our local Victorial Taft show just yesterday with his rebuttal on some of T. Boone Pickens stuff.
And yup… all good stuff. Mostly “open mouth, change foot” stuff, wouldn’t you agree.
But I also agree that perhaps I was more cautious in my approach and wording on my presentation. Perhaps “vapor clouding” the issue. The “cures” are idiotic, considering their argument.
Just to draw folks’ attention to this important fact in that JunkScience ref., above…
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
“Estimates vary, but somewhere around 15% seems to be the common number cited for the increase in global food crop yields due to aerial fertilization with increased carbon dioxide since 1950. This increase has both helped avoid a Malthusian disaster and preserved or returned enormous tracts of marginal land as wildlife habitat, land that would otherwise have had to be put under the plow in an attempt to feed the growing global population.”
The so-called “environmentalist” (the “mental” part is right, anyway) won’t tell you that. One has to ask, why they don’t know that. And, if they do know it, why do they want to bring starvation to all those who would be effected by decreased crop yields due to decreased CO2 levels.
They are all about social control, and that includes population control. And they will stoop to cruelly depriving many of food and resources, if it will achiever their population target. Their goals are selfish, and they are evil. And, like all the bad people of the past, they will fail, hopefully before they cause any more damage than they already have.
No disagreement. This entire issue is aobut money, power, and manipulation of public opinion. And, they are succeeding in the latter. Apparently, math is a lost art – as adding two and two, using their own logic, doesn’t compute.
@MataHarley
“As a matter of fact, Steve Milloy was just on our local Victorial Taft show just yesterday with his rebuttal on some of T. Boone Pickens stuff.”
Any audio available? I’ve heard him speak in a debate against the “realclimate” dissembler, and he was very effective. I would love to hear anything you might have.
Oh, and while I think of it, you wouldn’t happen to know where I can get my car fitted with a sail so I can beat the rush to wind-power, would you?
Nope.. here’s the KPAM site for her stuff”, and they only offer selective audio transcripts. This is not one of them. She’s not all that well known. Got a brief mention from Rush from some issue a few months ago, but otherwise they dont archive her stuff. I don’t always catch her, nor try to. She is one of the two or so local conversative talk show hosts in Oregon. But then, I don’t always listen to the “locals”. This just happened to be a fluke.
But I remember him really blasting T. Boone Pickens for the flaws in his plan v technology, costs and generated energy output. So I have to wonder… what’s going on with T. Boone? Just picking up on the big $ envirnomental train?
Thanks, M.H.
“Just picking up on the big $ envirnomental train?”
Good chance of that. There’s a future in subsidies, without which the alternatives couldn’t survive, and barely do as it is. And if someone can belly up to the trough that we’re being forced to maintain for their feeding frenzie, it could be good for him.
Using hydrogen or electric cars when winter temperatures are below freezing during temperature inversions (a layer of much warmer air just above the surface) can create a trap, for pollution as well as water vapor. The result- ice fog and hazardous driving….not good!
Flaw in your arguments:
Electric vehicles don’t produce water vapour.
Fuel cells are the devices that produce pure water vapour from hydrogen and oxygen.
But did you know combustion of any fuel produces water vapour? Your standard products of combustion of any hydrocarbon fuel … carbon dioxide and water vapour! So option 1) CO2 and water and also NOx, SOx, PM… or option 2) water vapour ……
And the Popular Mechanics article is pretty much bogus: plug-in electric vehicles will use off-peak grid power that is already widely available without adding grid capacity, and power plants don’t just suck up water and make it disappear; the water is returned fine. Also, power plants can use seawater. Finally, a University of Oil Country study? Come on.
Water consumption or production is hardly the issue at hand. Electric vehicles don’t actually consume water, the article points out that additional power plants or extra irrigation for crops will.
The link between tropical storm activity and carbon dioxide and/or increased water vapour is not concrete. But “reducing tropical storm activity” isn’t the sole “purpose” of reducing GHGs. Climate change has many more implications. Besides, you have overestimated the increase in water vapour that will presumably increase the frequency and level of these storms. Electric vehicles don’t emit water vapour. Fuel cell vehicles do, but as do combustion engines (which emit carbon dioxide And water vapour).
One of the big problems with electric is they require batteries and batteries now last about 5 or 6 years at the most before they are replaced. We aren’t talking one or two batteries. The Think vehical uses 6 car sized batteries while the electric Ford Ranger used 39. The used ones are shipped overseas, rebuilt in generally a hazardous way and then sent back. Just look up Minamata city, Japan and Minamata disease to see what happens in the battery recycling business. So one trades smog and acid rain with mercury and lead poisoning. Not only that, each battery weighs around 70lbs. so there has to be the energy to transport all these batteries from the street to Asia back to the streets in the U.S. if not the world. Also what enviromental impact us there if one of those ships sank and dumped 10s of thousands of batteries on the sea floor. The threat already exists for just every day car battery shipments, but then the chance increases five fold or more. Another problem with the electric Ranger, was the cost was so great that they could only be leased and Ford did it at a loss.
Hydrogen has it’s own problems. One it requres the precious metal palladium which is now going for $381 an oz. People are already stealing converters off of cars for palladium. Honda is leasing it’s hydroelectric car for $600 a month. Nobody knows how much one of these things will cost, with the material itself keeping prices high. It could get to the point that only the rich could own vehicals with the rest of us just leasing them. Another problem could be where the hydrogen comes from. There is talk of a home generator that uses water, but how much water is required to fill up a tank to drive 270 miles (The range of Honda’s car) and how does one get hydrogen when there is a drought in a land lock state?
PLENTY OF ‘GET-UP’ WITH NOWHERE TO GO
… and it’s easily affordable to a select group at well under $2 million. (right now leasing isn’t an ‘option’ because it’s the ONLY way to get one)
At the moment it’s a cool toy for the rich, who, under the Dems’ tax schemes, may not even be able to afford any, though maybe they could lease one (the rest of us walking, biking or riding pubtran). Of course, the price will come down, if the drive to produce them doesn’t run out of steam.
As to rechargeable electric cars, unless we have nuclear power supplying the electricity, we’ll still need coal fired power plants, so whatever pollution the car doesn’t produce, the factory will, …plus what Greg Dittman said about the toxins associated with manufacture/recycling of the batteries.
But, and it’s a big but, if everyone in a big city is driving one of those H2 powered cars in the summer, it might be like living in a sauna. Like with CO2, the global effects will be minmal, but locally it could prove to be unbearable. I can just see the sign as one enters the town, “WELCOME TO THE RAINFOREST OF CLEVELAND.” (All hyperbole aside, I’m confident that a brief summer shower far outweighs a day of whatever H2 powered cars could produce.)
UPDATE: A quick calculation shows that if 1/4 of an inch of rain falls on all of Cleveland (82.4 sq mi) it deposites roughly 1.7 million liters of water on the city. Given the city population is roughly 400,000, and assuming that 1/4 of them drive, we would need them to drive long enough to emit 17 liters (4.7 gallons) of water per car to produce the same amount as a light summer spritzing.
Oh, and never mind the fact that Clevelend has lots of waterfalls and is on the shores of Lake Erie.
http://www.worldfromtheweb.com/Parks/GreatLakes/P3290491.html
I mean, how could that be a factor in local humidity?
(Cleveland Average Annual Rainfall: 36.6” plus an average annual snowfall of about 40”)
http://www.clevelandcityinfo.com/
which would mean each driver would have to “burn” 763 gallons of water per year to equal the local rainfall. Now, before you say, “H2 cars could easily contribute far more than that,” let me point out that it’s all a mute point anyway, because burning fossile fuels results in about the same amount of H2O vapor as for an H2 car, so there would be no net change in H2O emissions, whatever they happen to currently be.
HAVE NO FEAR, THE ELECTRIC CAR IS almost HERE
TROPICAL STORM ACTIVITY WILL BE A THING OF THE PAST
TORNADIC ACTIVITY WILL BE BLOWN AWAY
THE SWELLING OCEANS WILL EBB
…kind of like they are now.
FINALLY, A COUPLE OF OTHER LINKS OF INTERREST
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19125621.200.html
You might consider…
http://www.water4gas.com/2books.htm
…with caution, of course…
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/329904/hydrogen_gas_generator_for_your_car.html?page=5&cat=27
How a fuel cell works…
http://www.howstuffworks.com/fuel-cell.htm
You are technically correct, Arthur. I should have made it clear I was talking about the hydrogen powered electric cars that emit water vapor – as you like to put it, because of the fuel cell propulsion technology.
And technically you are corrrect in that you aren’t pouring water into the cars to work. But the water usage required to advance the technology is undeniable. And that same problem of one step forward and three steps back applies to hydrogen as well.
According to a Seattle Times article, they said if the entire US vehicle fleet turned electric overnight, they estimate 70% drop in gas consumption, and a 17% jump in power useage. In order to supply the extra needs, wind and solar farms aren’t going to be enough, and nuclear power must be added to the mix. This article was discussing the GM plug in hybrid, the Volt… requiring a six hour charge from a normal outlet for a 40 mile commute.
Needless to say, if plug ins are the future of the world, it’s a good time to get a class A electrician’s license, because there’s going to be a lot of new outlets wired to accommodate for everyone plugging in their cars….
And what happens in a power outage? Everyone takes the day off? Kewl…. Amazing to think you can bring a nation to a complete halt with a brown out.
Dunno…. still have to come to the conclusion that most of these cures just create other problems. I suspect we’ll end up with a potpourri of “cure”. Auto manuf will improve the combustion engine, and some will go the plug in/hybrid way.
“And what happens in a power outage? Everyone takes the day off? Kewl…. Amazing to think you can bring a nation to a complete halt with a brown out.”
Gee, boys, how do you suppose we missed that?
And the corn to ethanol scam was shown to have the same weakness with the floods in the MidWest, which caused crop damage, and delayed plantings, all told causing a considerable decrease in expected yield. And who knows what else could happen. The oil, on the other hand, is there already. If we mess up, we could lose it, but with crops we can’t be sure of what we will get till we’ve got it. And that’s year after year after year… It’s an crisis waiting to happen!
Water vapor is only a good greenhouse gas because there is so much of it. It is much, much, much less of an greenhouse gas per molecule than CO2. Plus, there is the previously mentioned matter of the water cycle. At worst you will have more rain.
Minimata Bay was NOT due to battery recycling or lithium. It was due to methyl mercury from factories using the mercury as a catalyst. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease
Lithium is toxic, but it has considerably different effects. ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_battery
“[water vapor] is much, much, much less of an greenhouse gas per molecule than CO2.” — OmegaPaladin
I know that to be false, but I’m curious to see why you think it’s not. Please, explain, WITH references.
“[water vapor] is much, much, much less of an greenhouse gas per molecule than CO2.” — OmegaPaladin
My source says water vapor is 44X as potent but it’s not clear whether it’s per molecule or in total.
I’m glad someone mentioned that all burned fuels generate water vapor. In the case of methane, twice as many molecules of water are created than of CO2.
Harry Bergeron
Is your source on-line? If so I would like to take a look at it. Actually, no one knows the precise number, although there are ranges that many researchers accept as valid. In fact, no precise number exists, because the effect of each component varies by season, latitude, topography, etc., and concentration of itself and other components. And since the dynamics aren’t understood, the models are flawed. I don’t believe a model even if it tells me everything is ok, so I’m certainly not going to believe one that tells me there’s a problem. Anyway, thanks in advance for any link to that # you can provide.
@MataHarley
In addition to wasting water and wasting food, there is another problem with biofuels.
Biofuels Produce More Greenhouse Gases Than Oil and Gasoline It has to do with the Nitrogen fertilizers that result in Nitrous Oxide production. And, unlike OmegaPaladin’s claim about water being a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, Nitrous Oxide really is. Ooops!
Several people have mentioned that burning gasoline also produces water vapor. However, they imply that it produces the same amount of water vapor that burning hydrogen would. This is not correct.
1 Kg of Hydrogen is about equal in energy to 3 Kg of gasoline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density).
Atomic weights:
H = 1
C = 12
O = 16
3 Kg C8H18 (pure octane) contains 2.5 Kg Carbon and .5 Kg Hydrogen
1 Kg H2 => 9 Kg of H20 (1 Kg H2 + .5×16 Kg O2)
2.5 Kg C => 6.7 Kg CO2 (2.5 Kg C + 2×2.5x(16/12) Kg 02)
.5 Kg H2 => 4.5 Kg H20
So, unless my math is off. Gasoline outputs half the water vapor as hydrogen for the same energy output.
Frankly, tt doesn’t mean much to me because I don’t thing that we have a problem with human caused greenhouse warming anyway, but I just wanted to pick a few nits.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were something dreamed up and then touted by big oil proponents. Hydrogen would most likely be produced by natural gas, and is not feasable because of the high conversion cost of producing hydrogen, something like 2X more expensive then gas. 100% electric plugin, now that is the answer! Superior technology, since there are 1/10th the moving parts VS an internal combustion engine, and 1/4th the cost to run (2 cents a mile) check out tesla motors dot com.
Sure enough, I screwed up the math.
2.5 Kg C => 9.2 Kg CO2 (2.5 Kg C + 2×2.5x(16/12) Kg 02)
MARK
That’s what nits are for, to be picked. Good work! (Better to make a small mistake looking for the truth, then to do nothing and think you are avoiding errors, because that is the biggest mistake of all.)
And note that I didn’t say it was “the same”, just “about the same.”
Also, don’t forget that H2 is (alleged to be) about twice as efficient as gasoline, so if that is true you only have to “burn” 1/2 as much to get the same amt of work as for gas containing the same energy equivalent, which then makes it about 4.5 Kg H20 produced instead of 9 Kg, or “about the same” as for gasoline. — a LOT closer than I thought, actually!
And, even if gas produced less, that would indeed make gas “better” by that criterion, which is the wrong way for the eccofreaks (is that why they don’t talk about it?) who really aren’t interrested in making things better, just feeling better about themselves, regardless of the damage they do (as I’m guessing you know).
Lots of stellar opines here. And just to reiterate, while I wasn’t concerned about increased water vapor into the air, I did find it interesting that the enviros being fully behind increasing the levels of the #1 reason for warming was quite ironic.
But then I ran across a blog for the Science Policy at the U of Colorado. And oddly enough, several there had the same question… what is the effects of increasing water vapor on the global climate, and what results would the wide use of hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles have?
Their point was that further research should be conducted to explore whether or not (and to what degree) such effects would be significant, even if such research leads to a dismissal of concerns. So perhaps my hypothetical jump, asking if increased water vapor was such a good idea, isn’t such a dumb question afterall.
Their point was not that the increased vapor would, or would not be significant, as they hadn’t done that research. But they certainly believed more research was necessary before implementation.
Three of them wrote a letter to Science magazine, addressing the wisdom of hydrogen cars, and the lack of data for their impact. This was printed in the letters to the editor section. They got one of those “we are skeptical” type responses from the editors. Of note in their rebuttal was:
Again, we come back to water vapor in the upper layers of the atmosphere, and it’s effect. Evidently, there is just not a lot known about this global vapor flow. For example in 2006, NASA found that that thunderstorms over Tibet provide a main pathway for water vapor and chemicals to travel from the lower atmosphere, where human activity directly affects atmospheric composition, into the stratosphere, where the protective ozone layer resides. They also found that even tho there was more thunderstorms over India, the storms over Tibet transported nearly three times more water vapor into the lower stratosphere than happened in India.
In the 2nd paragraph of this article, they point out they really need to learn more about how water vapor reaches the stratosphere. Which basically asserts the U of Colorado Science Policy group’s suggestion that far more needs to be learned before we “take our medicine.”
Mata Harley
Yep. The Climate is so much more complicated than Gore and his ilk want us to believe, in order to control our lives and con us out of our money.
Just a quick comment – all the biofuel references I’ve seen posted here so far seem to believe that biofuels require 1) fertilizer and 2) diversion of cropland from food production to fuel production. However, neither is necessarily true. Biofuel can be produced using such sources as prairie forbs and grasses. These are perennials (don’t need to be replanted) don’t require fertilizer and are just one example of non-food production sources. I know there are information sources out there on the topic – for example I heard from some biologists, that there are efforts in SAmerica (Brazil?) where they’re using the ‘leftover’s from processing other food sources (sugar cane maybe) to produce biofuel. If someone can track that down I’d like to read it, but I’m not a biologist myself and don’t know where to find it.
I’m not necessarily a proponent of biofuel as THE solution, but I do think it makes sense to focus on technologies for renewable energy – the sooner the better.
IMO the largest barrier in the US to increased energy efficiency and creation of energy from renewable energy is our individual and group insistance on ‘choice’. Especially with regard to transportion and lodging. It’s almost curious that there isn’t much discussion of the benefits of increasing access to mass transportation, or of requiring individual residences or small businesses to be more energy efficient. Yet those probably have larger effects on global warming than individual transportation to and from work. However people would rather pay more individually for transportation in the short-term than ‘invest’ collectively in increased efficiency from mass-transit or support anything that limits their choice.
I’d also say that the overall movement toward electric solutions is coming from individuals who WANT to do the right thing – and see an electric or hybrid vehicle as a way that they can personally contribute to the right thing. (Whether it is the right thing or not is -almost- beside the point!)
I think people focus most on what they think can actually be done. Addressing the issue of heating and cooling billions of residences, stores, and workplaces as well as transporting GOODS from place to place (and not just getting individuals to work) is beyond most people’s vision – so they focus on the personal vehicle.