I agree, but electricity can also be generated from bio-mass, solar and wind energies. It does not need fossil fuel.Charging the electric mower or the hybrid car often requires utility power that is generated using fossil fuels, so the result is the same as the conventional mower or car.
Okay. As I said I shared it as the article that convinced me.It’s a poor article that battles a strawman.
Bio-mass produces 50-85% more CO2 per megawatt hour of electricity than coal and three times that of natural gas.GEddie:
I agree, but electricity can also be generated from bio-mass, solar and wind energies. It does not need fossil fuel.Charging the electric mower or the hybrid car often requires utility power that is generated using fossil fuels, so the result is the same as the conventional mower or car.
Solar and wind are not reliable and would require huge land mass / water surface areas to come even close to the energy provided by fossil fuels. That is not to mention the open-pit mining areas required to harvest the necessary elements and minerals to manufacture them and then the waste facility areas required to dispose of wind turbines (life span ~15-20 years), panels (20-30 years), and batteries (5-15 years), not much of which are easily recycled.A 2012 study by Synapse Energy Economics estimated that the average smokestack of a US biomass plant emitted about 1.67 tons of CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity generated, or 50 to 85 percent greater than emissions from a coal-fired plant. CO2 emissions from a biomass plant are more than triple the CO2 emissions from a natural gas facility.
If you can cite extreme pro-climate change positions and call them typical, we can cite extreme contrarian positions and call them typical. The fact is the article cited was published in 2008 which was a time during which I know for a fact many contrarians were proclaims zero or even negative warming, although their numbers have dwindled as more data has come in during the subsequent 12 years.StudentMI:
It’s a poor article that battles a strawman. It leads with this claim:I read an article years ago that sort of put my doubts to rest. Here it is.
This claim is expressly untrue. Most contrarians believe there is warming, they just question how much is caused by man and whether it will be catastrophic.Climate contrarians proclaim that global warming is not occurring at all,
There is a big difference you are ignoring. Burning coal or natural gas releases CO2 that could have stayed sequestered where it was in the ground for centuries. It is new CO2 added to the environment. But CO2 from biomass is recycled carbon. It is already in the environment. If the biomass is left to rot in a landfill, it would release the same amount of CO2 in a year or so that it would have released if burned for energy. Considering the total carbon cycle, biomass does not increase CO2 in the atmosphere at all.Bio-mass produces 50-85% more CO2 per megawatt hour of electricity than coal and three times that of natural gas.
Read the report. The biomass you are speaking of as “left to rot in a landfill” is hardly a substantial proportion of what would be considered a feasible energy source at any significant scale. What is being proposed is turning hundreds of millions of acres over to providing “feedstock” of sufficient quantity to make bioenergy a sustainable option.HarryStotle:
There is a big difference you are ignoring. Burning coal or natural gas releases CO2 that could have stayed sequestered where it was in the ground for centuries. It is new CO2 added to the environment. But CO2 from biomass is recycled carbon. It is already in the environment. If the biomass is left to rot in a landfill, it would release the same amount of CO2 in a year or so that it would have released if burned for energy. Considering the total carbon cycle, biomass does not increase CO2 in the atmosphere at all.Bio-mass produces 50-85% more CO2 per megawatt hour of electricity than coal and three times that of natural gas.
As with any combustion system, burning biomass generates a considerable amount of air
pollution, such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic
compounds (VOC), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carbon monoxide, and can also produce hazardous
air pollutants like hydrochloric acid (HCl), formaldehyde, dioxins/furans, mercury, and arsenic.28
The California Air Resources Board (CA ARB) found that biomass combustion generates 17 times
the amount of NOx and 27 times the amount of PM per megawatt hour as power plants burning
natural gas, and that municipal solid waste (MSW) combustion generates 24 times the amount of
NOx and 5 times the amount of PM as natural gas power plants (per MWh) (CA ARB, 2010).
According to the same source, biogas generates 22 times the amount of NOx and 9 times the
amount of PM as utility-scale natural gas power plants.
That’s what most of us do. You just prefer your experts to ours, presumably because you think they are right whatever they say. I accept the ones I do because, in comparing the arguments, their conclusions seem more reasonable.No, I reported the conclusion of the report I cited - a conclusion that was reached by the experts, not by me.
I often do that, but not without understanding what NOAA does with its data. It makes changes that should not be accepted simply because NOAA makes them, changes that uniformly make the past colder, and are not reproducible or open to anyone except the NCDC.You can bypass the media and go directly to NOAA, as I have just done.
Yeah but weren’t your experts the ones who at one time claimed there was no warming? Serious question.That’s what most of us do. You just prefer your experts to ours, presumably because you think they are right whatever they say. I accept the ones I do because, in comparing the arguments, their conclusions seem more reasonable.
That is exactly the philosophy of science expressed by the fictional Lord Dorwin of Asimov’s Foundation novel. But really, that is not what Paul_Edwards was doing by citing British MP Nigel Lawson and Michael Voris to go up against the experts. It is not what HarryStotle was doing by citing Historian and Journalist John Robson as he gave out his misinformation about CO2. And it is not what Ender did by citing a genuine scientist, but ignoring his conclusions. So please tell me where the contrarians on this issue have cited experts accurately and completely to support their views?LeafByNiggle:
That’s what most of us do. You just prefer your experts to ours, presumably because you think they are right whatever they say. I accept the ones I do because, in comparing the arguments, their conclusions seem more reasonable.No, I reported the conclusion of the report I cited - a conclusion that was reached by the experts, not by me.
There you go, rejecting expert analysis just because it doesn’t fit your beliefs. You can’t say you are relying on experts and then go and override them whenever you see fit.I often do that, but not without understanding what NOAA does with its data. It makes changes that should not be accepted simply because NOAA makes them, changes that uniformly make the past colder, and are not reproducible or open to anyone except the NCDC.You can bypass the media and go directly to NOAA, as I have just done.
Except that it is the left-leaning globalist politicians who are pushing a climate alarmism that the “overwhelming consensus” of scientists do not support.I go with the researchers on this, thus not the politicians who deny the overwhelming consensus of the scientists that specialize on this.
Ender:
There you go, rejecting expert analysis just because it doesn’t fit your beliefs. You can’t say you are relying on experts and then go and override them whenever you see fit.You can bypass the media and go directly to NOAA, as I have just done.
No actually, there is good probable cause for “rejecting” the so-called expert analysis from NOAA because the “experts” there are clearly tampering with the data in order to sustain a certain narrative. The data doesn’t support the narrative so it is being modified to do so. That is hardly good or trustworthy science.
The tampering revealed by the Climategate emails continues on today.