Are even people who trust the science of climate change in denial of its seriousness?

[Loren Pechtel]

I have to check but fridge should not be an issue. They are practically battery power capable nowdays.

A couple of years ago I was looking at what existed in refrigerators that you could carry in a car. The only options were thermoelectric wimps--they are only good for 40 degrees of differential and aren't capable of much more than keeping themselves cool--it takes ages to cool down something warm you put in them. Lots of power draw, though.

A/C could be an issue but I suspect you live in poorly insulated house where everything is pretty much open all the time.
With properly insulated house you will not have much problem with solar powered A/C.

Again, I think you underestimate the problem. Around here the code requires pretty good insulation. IIRC we have R-38 in the ceiling and R-19 in the walls, dual-pane windows. That still adds up to over $250 in power for cooling in the hottest month.

And that also is a problem for your nighttime power numbers. Here in the hottest months it's not unusual for the AC to be needed even in the middle of the night.

And electric water heater in Australia? are you insane? Last time I checked you had sun every day.

And again, I suggested nation wide grid for clouds.

Lets look at the economics of it some more.

1) In climates where it does not freeze you can use a direct loop solar system. My parents lived in such a climate, it worked well. Here, though, the winter nights are a bit cooler. Keeping a direct loop system from freezing is not very practical. Thus you're forced to use systems with a secondary coolant loop--and now the system is about 4x the price. I don't exactly like such systems, either--what if there's a leak between the coolant and the water?

2) Not everyone has a suitable place for the collectors.

 

[barbos]

excuses, excuses

 

[Nexus]

That still adds up to over $250 in power for cooling in the hottest month.

And that also is a problem for your nighttime power numbers. Here in the hottest months it's not unusual for the AC to be needed even in the middle of the night.

Desert climate homes should be using evaporative cooling not AC. Or at least only us AC as a secondary cooler after the evaporative system.

 

[barbos]

Your 5kwh for the overnight use might work. Lets look at what happens, though--in a single year those batteries are only storing about half that power. Oops, the power goes out before morning comes around.

Lead acid last 2-3 years just fine, without 50% drop in capacity.

I suggest you learn more about batteries. Lead acid batteries do not like being fully discharged. Furthermore, being discharged at all eats away at their life--about 500 cycles on each AH will reduce them to half.

I suggest you to learn about batteries.
What you said applies to car starter lead acid batteries, they are designed for high current. For storage they use deep discharge lead acid batteries designed for relatively low current and deep discharge.

Thus we are looking at more like $650/year. Thus your battery cost for having the lights on at night is over 35 cents/kwh. Add in the cells and the inefficiencies of the system and we're around 50 cents/kwh.

You calculated worst case scenario and it is still less than most people spend on cell phones.

50 cents/kwh will cause some major sticker shock.

To up things a bit more what happens on a cloudy day? Your pack will need to be several times bigger (although this has little effect on the replacement cost--the life goes up almost linearly.)

I believe I answered that question, I suggested nation wide grid. Hard to imagine whole US under clouds.
and gas powered backup in case unimaginable happened.
And no, you don't need bigger battery pack regardless, you need bigger capacity of solar panels which can power you even during global clouding.
Fact is, it is doable with what we have now, and it is not terribly inconvenient.
What is really inconvenient is a corrupted system where established energy business decides to keep things unchanged.

1) That's some major power cables.

Not at all.

2) A major winter storm will put large areas of the country under clouds for days on end.

You forgot about alien invasion, they could take over coal plants.

3) You seem to have no regard for the cost of what you are proposing.

Nope, it's you, I actually did a calculation, you did not.

4) Just because you might be able to get by doing all your high power stuff during the day (are you going to not work on cloudy days??) that doesn't mean everything can. The nighttime storage needed is vast.

not vast, and yes, I am totally cool with stopping nonessential things if necessary.

 

[DrZoidberg]

By denial, I mean it being one of the stages of bargaining with the guilt and grief for our near future generations.

I have been getting down to the nuts and bolts of layman resources about climate change on my own for a about a month now in my free time. Finally reading the basic details about long range effects of these greenhouse gases and not focusing on the details of how the warming will happen (like how much different layers of the ocean will warm and when) the end result is that higher CO2 levels DICTATE a higher equilibrium temperature. This is not a maybe, this is rock solid science very close to the 2+2=4 level of certainty.

I almost feel as if it is being undersold because if it were talked about in the more dispassionate terms people just would get discouraged and depressed. Some would also feel threatened and lash out against the messenger.

Personally, once it really hit me the level that we will be screwed especially with relation to sea level and our very coastal civilization, it was like a body blow.

However, that was the only way that I was able to focus my thinking to PLAUSIBLE remedies - which are well known though require a serious investment. I am just some Joe Blow, so I am not saying this to build myself up, but I think we all need to some through this bad news and see reality for what it is now.

The remedies really can only be done by massive geo-engineering. CO2 sequestration (temporary and permanent) by any means possible. Mass release of aerosols which can cause many unwanted side effects. Placement of high albedo, sunlight reflective/infrared emissive material in whatever places are possible.

So does anyone here agree/disagree that the average person who trusts the climate scientists and not the skeptics is in denial of its import?

Even if we agree with the reality of global warming it's not clear what we should do about it. We're dependent on electricity for everything today. If we'd cut down to pre-industrial levels most of us would die. That's just a simple fact of life. I'm a big fan of keeping the high energy usage but switching to more sustainable sources. That requires research. Focus on optimization of energy, rather than simply cutting down usage.

I'm personally an advocate of switching to nuclear power as our main source of energy. If we run out of uranium we can swtich to thorium. Earth will be burned to dust by the sun before our supply of thorium runs out. Nuclear power has none of the global warming issues of coal or oil. But politically, this is completely dead today. My prediction/hope is that when the penny finally drops, this is what is going to happen. And then we'll all be able to keep our way of lives.

Also, we're coming out of the latest ice-age. The temperature is going to go up even without our help. So even if we cut down emissions to zero, we've still got to deal with global warming somehow.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That still adds up to over $250 in power for cooling in the hottest month.

And that also is a problem for your nighttime power numbers. Here in the hottest months it's not unusual for the AC to be needed even in the middle of the night.

Desert climate homes should be using evaporative cooling not AC. Or at least only us AC as a secondary cooler after the evaporative system.

I haven't investigated why but swamp coolers are basically not used here.

Note that you can't combine them--the AC will spend a whole bunch of extra effort pulling the water back out of the air that the swamp cooler put there.

- - - Updated - - -

Your 5kwh for the overnight use might work. Lets look at what happens, though--in a single year those batteries are only storing about half that power. Oops, the power goes out before morning comes around.

Lead acid last 2-3 years just fine, without 50% drop in capacity.

I suggest you learn more about batteries. Lead acid batteries do not like being fully discharged. Furthermore, being discharged at all eats away at their life--about 500 cycles on each AH will reduce them to half.

I suggest you to learn about batteries.
What you said applies to car starter lead acid batteries, they are designed for high current. For storage they use deep discharge lead acid batteries designed for relatively low current and deep discharge.

Deep cycle batteries don't suffer as badly as starter batteries. That doesn't mean they aren't subject to the same problems.

 

[temporalillusion]

The melting of the arctic ice has *NO* effect on sea level and thus the current lack of rise doesn't mean it's not going to be an issue. The current rise is mostly just warmer water.

Just an aside, it does actually have some effect. Salt water is more dense than fresh water, and ice is fresh water (even if it's frozen from sea water). So when ice melts it dilutes the sea water, decreasing the density and therefore increasing the volume. The effect is small, single digit percentage of the overall sea level rise level, but not zero.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL042496/abstract

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The melting of the arctic ice has *NO* effect on sea level and thus the current lack of rise doesn't mean it's not going to be an issue. The current rise is mostly just warmer water.

Just an aside, it does actually have some effect. Salt water is more dense than fresh water, and ice is fresh water (even if it's frozen from sea water). So when ice melts it dilutes the sea water, decreasing the density and therefore increasing the volume. The effect is small, single digit percentage of the overall sea level rise level, but not zero.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL042496/abstract

I'm surprised at that. I would have thought the diluted sea water would have the same volume as the fresh water + plus the original sea water. Does not the density change scale linearly with the concentration???

 

[fromderinside]

I'm surprised at that. I would have thought the diluted sea water would have the same volume as the fresh water + plus the original sea water. Does not the density change scale linearly with the concentration???

http://smithplanet.com/stuff/iceandwater.htm

functional but not really linear.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm surprised at that. I would have thought the diluted sea water would have the same volume as the fresh water + plus the original sea water. Does not the density change scale linearly with the concentration???

http://smithplanet.com/stuff/iceandwater.htm

functional but not really linear.

NOTE: This does not account for the fact that the overall density of the water in the cup will decrease a small amount as the fresh water mixes in with it.

It doesn't specifically disclaim this when talking about sea water but neither does it appear to address it.

 

[bilby]

I'm surprised at that. I would have thought the diluted sea water would have the same volume as the fresh water + plus the original sea water. Does not the density change scale linearly with the concentration???

http://smithplanet.com/stuff/iceandwater.htm

functional but not really linear.

NOTE: This does not account for the fact that the overall density of the water in the cup will decrease a small amount as the fresh water mixes in with it.

It doesn't specifically disclaim this when talking about sea water but neither does it appear to address it.

The volume change due to reduced salinity would likely make less difference to sea levels than the effect of reduced salinity on the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. Neither will affect sea levels sufficiently to be worth worrying about; if all the world's sea ice melted, any effect from that would be (literally) swamped by the effect of land ice melting; I can't imagine a scenario where Arctic sea ice melting was significant, but Greenland ice-cap melting was not; the Greenland ice cap would be contributing well over 99% of the rise; and if there is a 50m increase in sea level, it will be pretty much exactly as damaging as a 49.5m increase.

Sea ice melting is a problem for the local ecology; and it is a problem for thermohaline circulation; but it is not a significant issue for sea level rise. For that, you need to melt land ice, which is mostly in Greenland and Antarctica.

 

[Veritass]

Going back to the thread title, I am one of those people that believes the science of anthropogenic climate change, and I am not in denial of its seriousness as much as I am resigned that any of the proposals will really do anything to significantly affect it. It seems to me that increasing human population in the world, along with increasing desire for standards of living, will push energy consumption far beyond anything sustainable. To me, the "tragedy of the commons" for this is not directly in the energy/pollution area, but more in (a) no country wanting to lower its population, and (b) no country wanting to lower its standard of living.

Here in California, we are "ahead of the curve" in trying to regulate this, but of course there is a lot of push-back: why should California trash its own economy for a negligible benefit, while China continues to build coal plants? It is a perfect "commons" issue.

I understand the non-carbon ideas such as wind, water, and nuclear. One thing I don't understand is Obama's calling for a large reduction in the carbon output of fossil fuel plants. I can understand scrubbing pollutants out of coal and gas plants, but is there even a viable technology to scrub carbon from the output of such plants?

 

[Underseer]

I'm surprised at that. I would have thought the diluted sea water would have the same volume as the fresh water + plus the original sea water. Does not the density change scale linearly with the concentration???

http://smithplanet.com/stuff/iceandwater.htm

functional but not really linear.

NOTE: This does not account for the fact that the overall density of the water in the cup will decrease a small amount as the fresh water mixes in with it.

It doesn't specifically disclaim this when talking about sea water but neither does it appear to address it.

The volume change due to reduced salinity would likely make less difference to sea levels than the effect of reduced salinity on the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. Neither will affect sea levels sufficiently to be worth worrying about; if all the world's sea ice melted, any effect from that would be (literally) swamped by the effect of land ice melting; I can't imagine a scenario where Arctic sea ice melting was significant, but Greenland ice-cap melting was not; the Greenland ice cap would be contributing well over 99% of the rise; and if there is a 50m increase in sea level, it will be pretty much exactly as damaging as a 49.5m increase.

Sea ice melting is a problem for the local ecology; and it is a problem for thermohaline circulation; but it is not a significant issue for sea level rise. For that, you need to melt land ice, which is mostly in Greenland and Antarctica.

Sea ice and the increased salinity of cold water that forms under it has more impact on things than you realize. This is the driver for deep sea currents that move an enormous amount of heat around the planet. Thanks to this, the tropical zones are cooler and the temperate zones are warmer. If the sea ice melts, there will be nothing left powering the deep sea currents, and it could take a thousand years to start back up again.

 

[bilby]

I'm surprised at that. I would have thought the diluted sea water would have the same volume as the fresh water + plus the original sea water. Does not the density change scale linearly with the concentration???

http://smithplanet.com/stuff/iceandwater.htm

functional but not really linear.

NOTE: This does not account for the fact that the overall density of the water in the cup will decrease a small amount as the fresh water mixes in with it.

It doesn't specifically disclaim this when talking about sea water but neither does it appear to address it.

The volume change due to reduced salinity would likely make less difference to sea levels than the effect of reduced salinity on the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. Neither will affect sea levels sufficiently to be worth worrying about; if all the world's sea ice melted, any effect from that would be (literally) swamped by the effect of land ice melting; I can't imagine a scenario where Arctic sea ice melting was significant, but Greenland ice-cap melting was not; the Greenland ice cap would be contributing well over 99% of the rise; and if there is a 50m increase in sea level, it will be pretty much exactly as damaging as a 49.5m increase.

Sea ice melting is a problem for the local ecology; and it is a problem for thermohaline circulation; but it is not a significant issue for sea level rise. For that, you need to melt land ice, which is mostly in Greenland and Antarctica.

Sea ice and the increased salinity of cold water that forms under it has more impact on things than you realize. This is the driver for deep sea currents that move an enormous amount of heat around the planet. Thanks to this, the tropical zones are cooler and the temperate zones are warmer. If the sea ice melts, there will be nothing left powering the deep sea currents, and it could take a thousand years to start back up again.

To what do you think the phrase 'thermohaline circulation' refers?

I think I realise more than you realise.

 

[Underseer]

I'm surprised at that. I would have thought the diluted sea water would have the same volume as the fresh water + plus the original sea water. Does not the density change scale linearly with the concentration???

http://smithplanet.com/stuff/iceandwater.htm

functional but not really linear.

NOTE: This does not account for the fact that the overall density of the water in the cup will decrease a small amount as the fresh water mixes in with it.

It doesn't specifically disclaim this when talking about sea water but neither does it appear to address it.

The volume change due to reduced salinity would likely make less difference to sea levels than the effect of reduced salinity on the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. Neither will affect sea levels sufficiently to be worth worrying about; if all the world's sea ice melted, any effect from that would be (literally) swamped by the effect of land ice melting; I can't imagine a scenario where Arctic sea ice melting was significant, but Greenland ice-cap melting was not; the Greenland ice cap would be contributing well over 99% of the rise; and if there is a 50m increase in sea level, it will be pretty much exactly as damaging as a 49.5m increase.

Sea ice melting is a problem for the local ecology; and it is a problem for thermohaline circulation; but it is not a significant issue for sea level rise. For that, you need to melt land ice, which is mostly in Greenland and Antarctica.

Sea ice and the increased salinity of cold water that forms under it has more impact on things than you realize. This is the driver for deep sea currents that move an enormous amount of heat around the planet. Thanks to this, the tropical zones are cooler and the temperate zones are warmer. If the sea ice melts, there will be nothing left powering the deep sea currents, and it could take a thousand years to start back up again.

To what do you think the phrase 'thermohaline circulation' refers?

I think I realise more than you realise.

Gah! Shoulda read the second paragraph. Sorry.