Comments on: Energy and Global Warming News for July 8th: Low-cost alternative to silicon for solar cells discovered; Major emitters fail to agree on plan to fight climate change

By: Rachid

Rachid — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:26:57 +0000

Human being is destroying himself by his own hands: http://inspirationwriting.blogspot.com/ 2009/ 07/ scientific-studies-showed-where-there.html

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:19:43 +0000

Don (13) — I fear you have the climatology bass-ackwards. Please read “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html

By: Don

Don — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:25:10 +0000

Having spent nearly 35 years in the development of renewable energy and environmental systems, I wholeheartedly support the push for making renewables more economically viable. However, this should be done from the perspective of “energy independence” and as “replacement technology” for diminishing oil reserves. In the meantime, we should not cripple our economy by carbon taxes or downplaying the role of nuclear. The climate change models have virtually ignored historic bases for climate change – i.e. seismic, volcanic, and changes in solar activity. In reality, the amount of seismic activity reflecting largely submarine volcanic and tectonic activity over the past 40 years has increased 20X and, on an annual incremental change basis, displays a very close correlation with changes in atmospheric CO2 and temperature profiles during that time. While high-profile scientists have supposedly debunked the impact of underwater volcanic activity on global warming, their explanations seem to ignore fundamental principles of heat transfer and thermodynamics. The article referenced below indicates there will be little impact on climate change due to changes in fossil fuel combustion levels.

http://tinyurl.com/nvcq7u

By: Gail

Gail — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:59:39 +0000

And the comments are all jumbled up on the daily news thread, not linked to individual stories, GAH! Latest on G8 climate: http://news.yahoo.com/ s/ ap/ 20090709/ ap_on_go_pr_wh/ obama

Concerning fish, there is a movie out called “The End of the Line” which I wish I could see but the closest theatre it played in was in New York, and I’m allergic to cities. The trailer looks intriguing: http://endoftheline.com/

By: Pangolin

Pangolin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:28:15 +0000

I thought that the general idea of using electricity for heating was to power ground-source heat pumps for building heat and domestic hot water. In that application electric heating is much more efficient than even the best natural gas boilers. There is also the advantage that ground loops can be combined with solar hot water units to “bank” heat from sunny days to use later. This can work either from load reduction on the ground loop or actual thermal banking of excess solar “income” in the ground loop.

Considering the massive amounts of natural gas and heating oil used to heat buildings a shift to these heat pumps could be the most effective climate action available.

By: Mike D

Mike D — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:30:23 +0000

The solar cell story is also here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/ article.cfm?id=solar-cells-cheaper-copper-indium-diselenide

By: Omega Centauri

Omega Centauri — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:23:23 +0000

About those nonsilicon solar cells. Just how many GW/year of production can they scale up to? The CIGS are great costwise, but Gallium is in too short a supply for them to ever become more than a smallish BB. At least I didn’t see a G in your blurb, but I’m unsure about the supply of the other ingredients. At least we know we can’t run out of silicon.

By: James Thomson the second

James Thomson the second — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:26:57 +0000

The most alarming thing is the near total lack of political willpower on display. It’s almost as if climate negotiators measure success by their ability to avoid being pinned down to any form of committment at all.

Under the circumstances making arm-waving “committments” to reduce emissions by 50% or 80% (or whatever the latest fiction is) is just laughable.

It’s like going on a diet which ignores cream buns and never starts until tomorrow.

By: Charles Siegel

Charles Siegel — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:07:49 +0000

“The G-8 draft statement would have the major industrial powers “recognize that global emissions should peak by 2020 and then be substantially reduced to limit the average increase in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.”

The science says that emissions must peak by 2015 to avoid an increase of 2 degrees, but unfortunately, the politics says that emissions don’t have to peak until 2020 to avoid an increase of 2 degrees.

http://solveclimate.com/ blog/ 20090529/ nobel-laureates-co2-emissions-must-peak-2015-avert-climate-ruin

[JR: The science isn't so black and white on 2015 vs. 2020. What happens after matters more.]

By: dhogaza

dhogaza — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:59:23 +0000

Aluminium smelting uses more electricity.

While true, aluminum (sorry, I’m a Yank) is easily recycled, and is, thus dropping the average amount of electricity required to make (say) a beer can).