Climate Change(d)?

[Elixir]

Using unrealistic models

What is unrealistic about the models? They’re based on observations and physics. Do you know anything about either of those things that might qualify you to characterize the models as “unrealistic”?
BTW, an axiom of modeling is “all models are wrong, some are useful”. I guess that should be appended to include your inexpert opinion.

 

[DBT]

It's not that these things never happened before, but that climate change predicts more frequent and more severe weather events, wildfires, storms....

Using unrealistic models, the propaganda predicts climate catastrophe. And none of the predictions have materialized. The climate has been remarkably stable.

The signs at Glacier National Park warning that its signature glaciers would be gone by 2020 are being changed. The signs in the Montana park were added more than a decade ago to reflect climate change forecasts at the time by the US Geological Survey, park spokeswoman Gina Kurzmen told CNN. In 2017, the park was told by the agency that the complete melting off of the glaciers was no longer expected to take place so quickly due to changes in the forecast model, Kurzmen said.

CNN

That example doesn't negate currant climate models and their predictions.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I’ve read conflicting scientific studies on whether it is even possible to replicate the density of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. One thing we should certainly be doing is returning to nuclear, but it may be too late for that

By definition we can--because we can make synthetic hydrocarbons with air + energy. Efficiently? No.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I’ve read conflicting scientific studies on whether it is even possible to replicate the density of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. One thing we should certainly be doing is returning to nuclear, but it may be too late for that

After Iron Age Man has lost his way, and after some millions of years have passed, Homo whatever or perhaps some other species may be ready to make its march toward advanced civilization. But certain useful substances, e.g. petroleum, will no longer be readily available. This may hinder the advance of technology. Thus the H. sapiens experiment may turn out to have been Earth's only chance for super technology.

This strikes me as cosmically sad. (But perhaps there'll still be a pleasant breeze in Santa Monica.)

Nothing else will arise.

It's not just the fossil fuels, but pretty much all the easily mined anything will be gone. And in 50 million years the CO2/temperature compensation pegs low and the mercury starts to rise. That will highly favor small things with quick life cycles that get more generations to evolve ways of coping with the temperature.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I’ve read conflicting scientific studies on whether it is even possible to replicate the density of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. One thing we should certainly be doing is returning to nuclear, but it may be too late for that

After Iron Age Man has lost his way, and after some millions of years have passed, Homo whatever or perhaps some other species may be ready to make its march toward advanced civilization. But certain useful substances, e.g. petroleum, will no longer be readily available. This may hinder the advance of technology. Thus the H. sapiens experiment may turn out to have been Earth's only chance for super technology.

This strikes me as cosmically sad. (But perhaps there'll still be a pleasant breeze in Santa Monica.)

Could be why we don’t hear from any high-tech extraterrestrials. They all consume their energy-dense resources in an eyeblink of time, dump it in the sky in the form of carbon, and then collapse.

I think we can survive the CO2. I have substantial doubts about whether we can survive the conflict that will result as areas become uninhabitable. And I have extreme doubts about our ability to survive the disinformation being churned out in ever greater amounts. We already are in a world where a large portion of the population is unable to tell they are basically being scammed. We still generally can tell by cross checking and by looking at any politically sensitive claim with considerable suspicion, but it's getting harder and harder.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why renewables cannot replace fossil fuels. The solution will have to strongly include nuclear.

If only I had said that.

Over, and over, and over... For years...

OKLO is an interesting Company. Couple of MIT grads, working on compact fast reactors.
I heard about them for the first time around October 2024, and bought some shares at $12. It took off, fell in April (when Sam Altman stepped down as Chair due to conflicts of interest with his AI thing), and took off again when it started looking like they would clear regulatory hurdles. Now it's bouncing around between $50-65. Looks like next year might be critical, as they intend to deploy their first working units.
I fell in love with their concept of more, smaller, points of power generation operating off-grid, close to where they are needed. Just seems more likely to remain reliable, than the vast "grid" we now have which will tend to all fail at once.

WIKI:

Oklo's business model is focused on selling power to customers, and its main product line for producing power is the Aurora nuclear reactor powerhouse product line. The Aurora powerhouse is a design for a small power plant to generate 15-50 MWe of electrical power via a Siemens or similar power generation system and utilizing a compact fast neutron reactor to produce heat. Fast reactors were first implemented in the 1950s, with around 20 in operation at a time, demonstrating safety benefits over thermal-neutron reactors. The Aurora is intended for off-grid applications, including data centers, artificial intelligence, remote communities, industrial sites, and military bases. It will be able to operate for up to 10 years without refueling.

Off grid?

That's always been an Achilles heel for nuclear, the need for external power to avoid a Fukushima. Yeah, a lot more went wrong with Fukushima but you still have the fundamental problem of when you turn a plant "off" it drops to 3%, not 0%. You either make something that can somehow survive that 3%, provide external sources of cooling, or get something like Fukushima when the cooling water boils off.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think Sandia developed a manufacturable model.

Chk this:

Home

The world's largest and leading commercial fusion energy company

cfs.energy

More immediately, see what OKLO is doing.

Fusion is a pipedream. It will never be cheaper, safer, cleaner, or more practical than fission power; The only thing that makes it popular is that it doesn't exist, which is exactly the kind of alternative power source that both the fossil fuel lobby and the hippies can really get behind.

Why do you say it will never exist?

Inertial confinement "works" now, it's just a matter of efficiency. It might not be possible to make viable, but I can't see that we know enough to say it's impossible.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is no way to know who TSwizzle is, what his motivations are, and if he is feigning ignorance.

I'm just a California guy that sees through the bullshit. My motivation is that you climate catastrophe, rapture fanatics know that I see through the bullshit.

No. You "see" what the reich wing wants you to "see". While they're actually pulling a corporate raider strategy, leaving the American people with the burned out husk.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If a fusion reactor can be built, it will clearly be very difficult to operate. Most designs assume a magnetically contained plasma, but that containment is clearly extremely hard to sustain. It will also produce lots of neutron radiation, so its material structure will both become highly radioactive, and severely degraded, in sustained operations.

I have a lot of doubts about adequately containing a plasma. But inertial confinement doesn't require it.

And neutrons are only a big deal if you try to put equipment next to the neutron source. A problem for magnetic containment, not for inertial. The answer to neutrons is the same for fission and fusion: you put a sufficient layer of something that you're not going to care about. Or something already radioactive--the isotopes that aren't useful become the lining for the reactor.

The thing is not all elements behave badly when subject to neutron bombardment. The ultimate example of a friendly material is helium, but the lack of density precludes using it as a shield. Some designs have suggested using it as the working fluid in the primary loop, though, as helium fresh from the reactor is utterly not radioactive. (He3 + n -> He4, stable. He4 + n -> He5, which virtually instantly decays to He4 + n. This doesn't just repeat forever as the neutron's energy quickly gets converted to heat.)

Fission technology is being held back by military influences, who want reactors that can make bomb-grade fissionables; And by hippies, who want humanity to return to the paleolithic.

This makes no sense. The military doesn't use existing power reactors for fuel production, why would replacing the existing power reactors be a problem for them? And if anything a molten salt design would be lovely for plutonium production as it allows very rapid fuel swaps.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's not that these things never happened before, but that climate change predicts more frequent and more severe weather events, wildfires, storms....

Using unrealistic models, the propaganda predicts climate catastrophe. And none of the predictions have materialized. The climate has been remarkably stable.

The signs at Glacier National Park warning that its signature glaciers would be gone by 2020 are being changed. The signs in the Montana park were added more than a decade ago to reflect climate change forecasts at the time by the US Geological Survey, park spokeswoman Gina Kurzmen told CNN. In 2017, the park was told by the agency that the complete melting off of the glaciers was no longer expected to take place so quickly due to changes in the forecast model, Kurzmen said.

CNN

I made an attempt on Kilimanjaro long ago. Failed because we didn't summit before sunrise. Back then that mattered because you were on ice from about 16,000' on up. Now, the normal routes are generally ice free and there's no longer a need to summit before sunrise. I also failed to recognize the mountain in video from only about 20 years later.

 

[pood]

The La fires should have been a wake up call. But it is probably back to carefree sun and surf in La.

Wildfires in California are nothing new. They are a natural and necessary phenomenon. Why you keep bringing up California wildfires as evidence of climate apocalypse is just daft and cannot be taken seriously.

There is no way to know who TSwizzle is, what his motivations are, and if he is feigning ignorance.

I'm just a California guy that sees through the bullshit. My motivation is that you climate catastrophe, rapture fanatics know that I see through the bullshit.

No. You "see" what the reich wing wants you to "see".

“Reich wing”

 

[pood]

I’ve read conflicting scientific studies on whether it is even possible to replicate the density of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. One thing we should certainly be doing is returning to nuclear, but it may be too late for that

After Iron Age Man has lost his way, and after some millions of years have passed, Homo whatever or perhaps some other species may be ready to make its march toward advanced civilization. But certain useful substances, e.g. petroleum, will no longer be readily available. This may hinder the advance of technology. Thus the H. sapiens experiment may turn out to have been Earth's only chance for super technology.

This strikes me as cosmically sad. (But perhaps there'll still be a pleasant breeze in Santa Monica.)

Could be why we don’t hear from any high-tech extraterrestrials. They all consume their energy-dense resources in an eyeblink of time, dump it in the sky in the form of carbon, and then collapse.

I think we can survive the CO2. I have substantial doubts about whether we can survive the conflict that will result as areas become uninhabitable. And I have extreme doubts about our ability to survive the disinformation being churned out in ever greater amounts. We already are in a world where a large portion of the population is unable to tell they are basically being scammed. We still generally can tell by cross checking and by looking at any politically sensitive claim with considerable suspicion, but it's getting harder and harder.

I think we’ll survive CO2 but will likely lose high-tech industrial civilization.

 

[TSwizzle]

It's not that these things never happened before, but that climate change predicts more frequent and more severe weather events, wildfires, storms....

Using unrealistic models, the propaganda predicts climate catastrophe. And none of the predictions have materialized. The climate has been remarkably stable.

The signs at Glacier National Park warning that its signature glaciers would be gone by 2020 are being changed. The signs in the Montana park were added more than a decade ago to reflect climate change forecasts at the time by the US Geological Survey, park spokeswoman Gina Kurzmen told CNN. In 2017, the park was told by the agency that the complete melting off of the glaciers was no longer expected to take place so quickly due to changes in the forecast model, Kurzmen said.

CNN

That example doesn't negate currant climate models and their predictions.

There are plenty others, just skim through Teh Grauniad “climate crisis” section.

 

[steve_bank]

For a 1 degree C rise in temperature of the volume of water in the Gulf Of Mexico the increase in energy is approximately 9.7 gigaajoules. If all the energy was converted to work in 1 second it would be 9.7 gigawatts. Watts = Joules/second.

That is an upper bound. As a lower bound the volume of water at a depth of 200 meters for a 1 degree C rise is approximately 1.2 gigajoules.

A lot of energy.That is the increase in n energy above the existing thermal energy in the gulf. Warmer water means ore energy in hurricanes. More rain.

NOAA: How much energy does a hurricane release?

Hurricane Florence made landfall on Friday and has since battered the Carolinas, dumping record breaking amounts of rain. The death toll has risen to 23, including 17 in North Carolina. AFP photo.

energi.media

Hurricanes can be thought of, to a first approximation, as a heat engine; obtaining its heat input from the warm, humid air over the tropical ocean, and releasing this heat through the condensation of water vapor into water droplets in deep thunderstorms of the eyewall and rainbands, then giving off a cold exhaust in the upper levels of the troposphere (~12 km/8 mi up).

Method 1) – Total energy released through cloud/rain formation:An average hurricane produces 1.5 cm/day (0.6 inches/day) of rain inside a circle of radius 665 km (360 n.mi) (Gray 1981). More rain falls in the inner portion of hurricane around the eyewall, less in the outer rainbands. Converting this to a volume of rain gives 2.1 x 1016 cm3/day. A cubic cm of rain weighs 1 gm. Using the latent heat of condensation, this amount of rain produced gives

5.2 x 1019 Joules/day or

6.0 x 1014 Watts.


This is equivalent to 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity – an incredible amount of energy produced!

Method 2) – Total kinetic energy (wind energy) generated:For a mature hurricane, the amount of kinetic energy generated is equal to that being dissipated due to friction. The dissipation rate per unit area is air density times the drag coefficient times the windspeed cubed (See Emanuel 1999 for details). One could either integrate a typical wind profile over a range of radii from the hurricane’s center to the outer radius encompassing the storm, or assume an average windspeed for the inner core of the hurricane. Doing the latter and using 40 m/s (90 mph) winds on a scale of radius 60 km (40 n.mi.), one gets a wind dissipation rate (wind generation rate) of

1.3 x 1017 Joules/day or

1.5 x 1012Watts.

Python code. I checked it a few times, with my vision problem I am prone to errors.
Density and c for sea water from the net. Area form the wiki page on Gulf of Mexico. Total volume of the gulf fro ma net reference.



density = 1000 #kg/m^3
c = 4 #kj/(kg*degC) specific heat
vkm3 = 2434000 #volue km^3
#1 km^3 = 1e9 m^3
vm3 = 1e9 * vkm3 # volume m^3
mass = density * vm3 #kilograms
# q = mass*c*dT
q = mass*c*1 # change in energy kilo Joules
print(q," kilo Joules")


gulf_area = 1560000 #m^2
depth = .2 # kilneters
vm3 = gulf_area*depth
mass = density * vm3
q = mass*c*1 # change in energy kilo Joules
print(q," kilo Joules")

 

[steve_bank]

Oh no!! TSwizzle used the roll eyes emoji, I am done for. Anything but the roll eyes! I give up.

You should give up but you won't. You will continue to spam the thread with nonsense.

Climate change is not happening. Please no more emojis I surrender.

This is the sort of nonsense I am referring to. When have I ever said climate change is not happening?

Hmm. He does not get I am mocking him. Does he really think I take him and anything he says seriously?

There must be sites where he can commiserate with people who thinks like he does.

His only argument is there has always been climate change, and there are no catastrophic effects of current global warming despite years of global reporting.

For years FOX even denied that temperature was rising, and eventually acquiesced.

And now TSwizzle says there are a lot of people who think he does. A lot of people think Trump is a great leader. A lot of people believe Jesus walked on water.

If you deny that global temperature is rising, glaciers and polar ice are not melting, seas are not risng post an explanation of why actual observations are wrong.

 

[Elixir]

.

Off grid?

That's always been an Achilles heel for nuclear, the need for external power to avoid a Fukushima. Yeah, a lot more went wrong with Fukushima but you still have the fundamental problem of when you turn a plant "off" it drops to 3%, not 0%. You either make something that can somehow survive that 3%, provide external sources of cooling, or get something like Fukushima when the cooling water boils off.

Yes, it is designed for off grid. Maybe Sam Altman quit when he couldn’t convince them that you first have to hook up a grid to be safe off-grid.

I don’t know about all the ramifications of differing characteristics of rapid “fast” reactors, but they do have different cooling systems and some passive cooling capability.

“Conventional reactors (like pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors) use water as both coolant and neutron moderator. Water slows down (moderates) neutrons, which is essential for sustaining the chain reaction in these reactors.
• Fast reactors must avoid neutron moderation to maintain a fast neutron spectrum. Therefore, they use coolants that do not significantly slow down neutrons. The most common coolants for fast reactors are liquid metals—primarily sodium, but also lead or lead-bismuth eutectic. Some experimental designs have explored helium gas or molten salts as coolants, but all operational fast reactors have used liquid metals.
Key differences in cooling systems:
• Coolant type: Fast reactors use liquid metals (sodium, lead, lead-bismuth), while conventional reactors use water.
• Operating pressure: Fast reactors typically operate at or near atmospheric pressure because their coolants have high boiling points, reducing the risk of high-pressure accidents. Conventional reactors operate at high pressures to keep water liquid at high temperatures.
• Passive safety: Many fast reactor designs incorporate passive cooling systems that rely on natural circulation of the coolant, enhancing safety in case of power loss.
• Complexity and safety: Fast reactor cooling systems are generally more complex due to the chemical reactivity of coolants like sodium (which reacts violently with water and air), requiring additional safety measures.”

 

[steve_bank]

Three Mile Island put the kibosh on nuclear power. That plus antibody wanted to have a nuclear waste storage site in their state.

There are intrinsically safe reactor designs that can never have an uncontrolled runaway state.

An intrinsically safe system is one where any failure can not lead to fire, explosion, or hazard to life.

'Fail Safe'.

An intrinsically safe nuclear reactor is designed so that safety is inherent in its physics and design, meaning it doesn't rely on active safety systems or human intervention to prevent accidents. These reactors utilize features that naturally limit power output and prevent meltdowns, even in extreme situations. Several designs exist that leverage principles like negative temperature coefficients and passive cooling systems to achieve this.

Passive nuclear safety - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Passive nuclear safety is a design approach for safety features, implemented in a nuclear reactor, that does not require any active intervention on the part of the operator or electrical/electronic feedback in order to bring the reactor to a safe shutdown state, in the event of a particular type of emergency (usually overheating resulting from a loss of coolant or loss of coolant flow). Such design features tend to rely on the engineering of components such that their predicted behaviour would slow down, rather than accelerate the deterioration of the reactor state; they typically take advantage of natural forces or phenomena such as gravity, buoyancy, pressure differences, conduction or natural heat convection to accomplish safety functions without requiring an active power source.[1] Many older common reactor designs use passive safety systems to a limited extent, rather, relying on active safety systems such as diesel-powered motors. Some newer reactor designs feature more passive systems; the motivation being that they are highly reliable and reduce the cost associated with the installation and maintenance of systems that would otherwise require multiple trains of equipment and redundant safety class power supplies in order to achieve the same level of reliability. However, weak driving forces that power many passive safety features can pose significant challenges to effectiveness of a passive system, particularly in the short term following an accident.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Three Mile Island put the kibosh on nuclear power. That plus antibody wanted to have a nuclear waste storage site in their state.

they’d much rather have fossil fuel waste spread across every state and nation on the earth.

 

[steve_bank]

Energy Density megajoules/kilogram

Energy density - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

coal 20-30
Oil, gasoline, and natural gas are around 50
nuclear fuel (u-235) 8e7
hydrogen 140

 

[steve_bank]

Three Mile Island put the kibosh on nuclear power. That plus antibody wanted to have a nuclear waste storage site in their state.

they’d much rather have fossil fuel waste spread across every state and nation on the earth.

There are the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Plus all the movies about apocalyptic scenarios and radiation beginning in the 40s 50s. Mutant zombies.