Is our only hope for survival people like Craig Venter?

[Neil]

Assuming global warming is as bad as we're all being told, and the fact that in reality our emissions are only going to increase, NOT decrease, is our only hope manmade bacteria etc to convert Co2 into other things, eg: bio fuels etc?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_laboratorium

[Neil]

Like I suggested, I don't think as a planet we can reduce our Co2 emissions... I think they will keep going up! So we're either doomed, or Co2 won't be as bad as they suggest, or we need someone like Craig Venter to save the planet!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7135836.stm

[MinionZombie]

And apparently the Hydrogen-fueled car is almost done. Water goes in, water comes out. The only problem remaining is containing the fuel itself, which is a bit volatile, once that's sorted - boom - clean car fuel and the richest man/woman/company alive. :D

Exactly, I think an idea about converting or using 'the problem' to create 'the solution' is a smarter idea than all this Labour-loved stuff of "by 20-something we'll cut our CO2 by 40, no wait 50, no wait 60 percent" ... it's just so random and plucked out of the sky, in the UK at least. It seems to random...then of course the whole thing of not-that-great biofuels being planted in areas that used to be rain forrest...COME ON!!! :eek::rolleyes::eek:

Hydrogen cars and smarty-pants chemical conversion of stuff I'm behind.

Also, just not being wasteful in general - not a green issue at all - just an issue of common sense and being responsible. We don't need a shedload of packaging with everything, recycling needs to be 100% proven to be happening, none of this crap where it goes into landfill regardless in some areas (as shown on Dispatches a while back - a disgraceful thing to be happening), efficient engines, stop flying "ghost flights" around the world (planes with no passengers on board) and so on...those are the sort of beaurocratic things mankind can get up to, but apart from that, it comes down to the absolute boffins and the hydrogen car and that conversion thing you're on about.

*sigh* rant over. :p

[Terran]

And apparently the Hydrogen-fueled car is almost done. Water goes in, water comes out.

Bleh I gotta address this Hydrogen car thing its like a pet peeve of mine....The whole concept of it is essentially a lie... Everytime I see a commercial about hydrogen cars I want to just scream at the announcer for promoting the lies and half truths that they do in those commercials....


Hydrogen fuel cars will likely never see large scale consumers....It appears to have always been a pipe dream that the automotive business has been clinging to for a long time (they stand to make much more money off Hydrogen cars than they do off pure electric cars)....

Pure Electric Cars are far more likely....(especially with the growing outputs of contemporary Supercapacitors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor)


But both systems are just energy carriers for vehicles so they still need some sort of power source to "charge" or fuel them up....but unlike electric cars Hydrogen requires much more energy to create, store and replace(short shelf life)....

Making Hydrogen requires a lot of energy..."green" energy as it stands now is not capable of supplying the amount energy needed for the numbers of cars that are on the roads (and if "green power" was capable of supplying this amount of energy why not use that to charge more efficient electrical cars)........

So for hydrogen cars to be implemented one would have to use fossil fuel energy to make hydrogen for the cars...So that would be like burning 5 barrels of crude oil so you could have 2 barrels worth of crude oil in the form of hydrogen energy....keep in mind the idea behind hydrogen cars was to reduce carbon emissions...

The technical hurdles in Hydrogen vehicles are sooo steep that the only way they will ever be implemented is that if all technical progress in the other alternatives cease while hydrogen continues to claim only 15 more years....

Just look at the Hydrogen info on wiki ....notice all the problems with implementing this technology ...you would need several miracles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle

These are the technical hurdles for hydrogen(summarizing some of the wiki stuff).

Hydrogen has Low volumetric energy: This means it has poor energy characteristics at low densities so to get power out of them they have to be under high pressure and even when under high pressure the volumetric energy density (megajoules per liter) is small relative to that of gasoline.....

Fuel cell cost: They are costly to produce because to be even functional they require the use of rare metals and complicated manufacturing. Don’t take them on a bumpy road because it’ll break (cost is unlikely to ever change if these rare metals are required)

Freezing conditions: They have real trouble starting in the cold. (looks like they are getting closer to fixing this though).

Hydrogen production cost This a big one that I alluded earlier....It costs more energy and puts more CO2 into the atmosphere to make the hydrogen, just to give us less energy than just burning the fuel itself.... So less energy more CO2 production...

Hydrogen infrastructure Requires significantly more elaborate storaging facilities. "Replacement of the existing extensive gasoline fuel station infrastructure would cost a half trillion U.S. dollars in the United States alone." I don’t think this figure includes maintenance or the personal costs to service these more complicated stations...

Service life: Short Service Life


Alternatives:I also mentioned this briefly. Electric cars are already more efficient, are already capable of more than Hydrogen cars.
For Hydrogen cars to surpass electric cars, electric car technology would have to completely stop in innovation while Hydrogen cars figure out how to get blood from a stone...

Electric cars also just make far more practical sense, the technology has less to overcome and will fit in with current infrastructure much more seamlessly...All a fueling station needs is outlets....


This diagram illustrates it perfectly
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8d/Battery_EV_vs._Hydrogen_EV.png/600px-Battery_EV_vs._Hydrogen_EV.png

Just replace that Windmill with petroleum because thats where all this energy would come from...

For the hydrogen car:
Lets say you got 1000 units of energy from petroleum.
First step is 70% efficient so your left with 700 units of energy.
Next step is 90% efficient so your left with 630 units of energy.
Then the car itself is 40% efficient so your left with 252 units of energy. This means that 748 units of energy are wasted in either heat or byproducts (CO2)...

The electric car:
Starting with a 1000*.93 *.93= 864.9
This means only a 135.1 is wasted as heat and byproducts
So to get the hydrogen into the hydrogen car.


Big oil must love the Hydrogen car....because they will sell more oil than ever with that amount of waste. :rolleyes:
Not to mention all the money car companies will make selling replacement parts for their over-engineered automotivebombs...


Rant about Hydrogen Cars over....






Regarding the global warming thing....

Ive been saying for a long time to anyone who would listen, that the things they were hearing in editorial articles regarding global warming were watered down and relatively optimistic. For a long time it was taboo for a scientists to predict rapid change in our lifetime. At least since like 2000 they have said about every year in their public statement that it is about 100 years for the global temperature to change 1.1 to 6.4 °C . Their actual scientific papers though continued to allude that this was not the case....
Their actual papers would say stuff like this:
[not actual figures, but examples]
2000: 5% more melting than expected
2001: 10% more melting than expected
2002: 20% more melting than modeled
2003: 10% more melting than modeled
etc
2007: Where we are now is where we modeled we would be in 2050.....

Yet throughout most of this time the public statements still stayed at 100 years (they didnt even start counting down shouldn’t it be like 93 years :rolleyes:. )


Clearly the more drastic estimates of change are more valid than they were initially given credit for...Hopefully its somewhere between the drastic and the "optimistic"...hopefully its not worse than the most drastic scenarios...

Realistically I don’t think that there’s anything that can be done.

Magically stopping all emissions? Well no the planet will still continue to heat for at least 100 years.

The development of “carbon fixing” technology? No. It cannot feasibly develop at a rate that it can be implemented in time so that it can remove 50+ years worth of past CO2 in the air while dealing with increasing emissions of CO2, while dealing with the ecological, and sociopolitical issues that follows rapid climate change.

So its my scientific opinion that we are screwed. Not as a species but our society as we know it.
So here is my prediction on the outcome.
I don’t have a time scale for my prediction but I see it to be very plausible. (especially because it is happening as I write this)


Climate Changes become slightly more noticeable.
More droughts, floods, and famines. Primarily those suffering are poorer countries with less resources at their disposal.
Global Powers of the World distribute aid, limited to their ability to provide it.
Climate Changes become slightly more noticeable.
More droughts, floods, and famines. Primarily the same poorer countries or similar regions.
Region becomes less stabile. Unrest, feuds, and terrorist groups appear in greater frequency.
Global resource distribution is disrupted.
Global Powers of the World distribute aid, and support to the regions governments.
Climate Changes become slightly more noticeable.
More droughts, floods, and famines.
Poorer countries collapse into wars, ethic cleansings, and terrorist activities as they scramble for available resources within the regions.
Global Powers of the World are unable to aid due to climate issues at home. And use military power to secure vital resource chains disrupted by the unrest.
Climate Changes become slightly more noticeable
More droughts, floods, and famines.
Poorer countries of the world are left to their own devices, they migrate and raid surrounding areas for resources causing increased regional tension.
Global Powers of the World begin competing and arguing over resources. Tensions increase. Both Domestically and between powerful nations.
Climate Changes become slightly more noticeable
More droughts, floods, famines.
Global tensions around the world become unbearable.
WWIII



After a global war it gets more difficult to predict anything….


But I figure the world will have to lose about 4 billion people before things really begin to settle back down and we repopulate back to around half our current population. And those that remain will found a society completely different than before …if they learn anything from history……*sigh*…..

[Neil]

I for one hope you're wrong... I hope we've misunderstood the 'system'... Maybe something as simple as, warmer climate = more vegetation = less Co2 for example...

Anyway, I hope you're wrong, as I don't want my kids to live in your future!

http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/37895/2006252740279979905_rs.jpg

[Terran]

Well It really appears the climate is in for some sort of rapid drastic change...
The data correlates together rather strongly.

And there is just sooooo many people on this planet that any shift in climate even small ones are going to have large effects....

And adding additional insult to injury...
global petroleum production is projected to peak sometime within the next 50 years*....
So not only will we be attempting to cope with a global climate disaster, we will have to do it while facing a global energy disaster..... :shifty:

Welp it makes for a good movie....
http://www.myconfinedspace.com/watermark.php?src=wp-content/uploads/2006/06/mad-max-2.jpg
Is this your son 30 years from now? :clown:

Theres still some slivers of hope...
Space Travel...(If you get a chance to colonize, take it):rockbrow:
Hydrogen 3 (Tritium) on the moon(though I havent heard anything about that in a while)....:rockbrow:







*Graph (Im not sure how up to date this projection is.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/PU200611_Fig1.png


Hmm sorry the images are so big

[Neil]

I can fully see a global mess in 50-100 years. A couple of billion people dead etc etc... And ontop of this probably fossil fuels beginning to run out!

I think society all to easily wears blinkers and assumes we are safe and sound, when infact it won't take much to totally f*** us up! A couple of days without power or food would us tumbling down...


But, I cannot help but wonder if infact what will happen is the climate will change (somewhat), and that's it... We'll just deal with it...

It's a shame nuclear fusion is still at least 15-20yrs off at best...

[MinionZombie]

I say we blow up China! :D

[DeadJonas190]

I was going to post about Hydrogen fuel cells, but aparantly Terran already did and he did much better than I would have so basically my post is now

"Yeah, what Terran said!"

[Neil]

Terran, what's your take on stuff like this then?

http://www.lonnypaul.com/lonny.paul/2006/11/09/contrails-global-warming-caused-by-increased-flights/

[Terran]

I heard about this a while ago....not this specifically but I heard of jet trails effecting the weather....but they didnt extend it to effecting global climate back then.....

Im not sure how much research there is regarding this though, or at least I havent seen any mentioned....

It is a possibility that the contrails could have long lasting climate effects, and probally should be looked into in greater detail....I hope to here more about this for clarification....either to rule it out or to add another dimension to rapid climate changing factors


So my take on this is:....Interesting....Interesting....

[MinionZombie]

Okay, this was on a sketch show admittedly (Armstrong & Miller) where a Geordie window cleaner sets out sensible options to solving complex issues (such as the Iraq war) and then says, "but what do I know..."

Anyway, in regards to climate change, this character goes on about painting roofs of buildings white to reflect light back out again leading to a cooler climate - is there actually any real science type "mmm, yes..." behind that? Just interested.