psycholist Posted February 14, 2008 Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 The issue has been turned into global warming as a further attempt to convince people to stop depending on unsustainable fuel sources. The problem with fossil fuels is not really to do with their global warming contribution - the greenhouse effect is currently making the Earth 33 degreesC hotter than it would be without it, so clearly it's necessary to maintain life as we know it and the 0.6 degC the IPCC has put out as their official (And believable) world temperature increase figure is a pretty small change compared to that which the Earth has been through already. Human activity contributes somewhere in the region of 5.5% of the greenhouse gases on the atmosphere, so hardly within the margin of error. Water is the biggest greenhouse gas, and water levels are directly linked to the Earth's temperature, so there is a danger of a small change caused by the other greenhouse gases leading to a vicious cycle of increased temperature.The primordial Earth as an extreme example is thought to have had over 30% CO2 in the atmosphere - with global temperatures in the region of 70 degC (This did not have to support mammilian life of course). A small fraction of this CO2 was subsequently trapped in fossil fuels, most was chemically bonded into various minerals (A process which has been suggested as a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technique for power stations). The sea level has risen I think 20cm in the past hundred years, leading to some pacific islands being evacuated or planning evacuation (There are plenty of islands in the Pacific supporting populations on subsistence fishing with max heights over sea level of only 2 or 3 metres, so increasing sea level has a huge impact on them), so there are already effects being seen with the global warming seen already.Irrelevant to global warming however, moving away from fossil fuels should be inherently desirable as a means of achieving political and economic separation from the countries with the biggest oil reserves and very dubious political stability records (Namely the Middle East). I don't think anyone believes the war(s) in Iraq have anything to do with human rights, promoting democracy or weapons of mass destruction, it's all about ensuring an oil supply, the same is true for Afghanistan (Except it was an oil pipeline through it that was required IIRC). Given that at current consumption rates the world's oil supply will only last for 40 years (In the 1970's this was estimated at 30 years though, put it remains a finite resource) and the world's consumption rate for oil is continuously increasing, there must be a consideration of alternative energy sources. Incidentally, coal at about 200 years left at current consumption rate is the most abundant fossil fuel. It should be noted that there is every possibility that reserve figures, particularly in the Middle East, are considerably inflated - namely the reserves don't seem to drop each year as oil is produced and there are occasional jumps in figures which may be related to improved extraction technology, but don't seem to correlate with new discoveries (There's a wikipedia page showing a table of values with suspicious changes for anyone who's interested). The driver for lying about oil reserves is that the bigger an OPEC country claims their reserves are, the more oil they're allowed extract in a given year. Countries such as Dubai have already acknowledged their oil is finite by putting a lot of the money they're making now into building tourist attractions to keep money coming into the country after the oil is gone. This is probably a daft activity though, since without oil tourists aren't really going to be able to travel there unless alternative energy grows a hell of a lot.Nuclear power is also not a solution - there's a finite amount of Uranium in the world too, much of which is controlled by similarly politically unstable governments. Hydroelectric power currently contributes about as much to electricity generation world wide as nuclear, and it's thought that we may be near peak production of Uranium already too. If nuclear fusion is made workable it might be a solution however (This has been promised as being within a decade of solving since probably the 70's and is still not workable)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroMatt Posted February 14, 2008 Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 Nuclear fission is a perfectly viable source of power. Although fissionable material is finite there is a huge amount of it on the planet, for example this is a quote from a research paper I read recently. "Seawater contains 3.3x10^(-9) (3.3 parts per billion) of uranium, so the 1.4x10^18 tonne of seawater contains 4.6x10^9 tonne of uranium. All the world's electricity usage, 650GWe could therefore be supplied by the uranium in seawater for 7 million years."Furthermore rivers are constantly adding more and more uranium to the sea at a rate of 3.2x10^4 tonne per year. On top of the uranium in seawater there is a huge amount of it yet 'undiscovered' so to speak because as soon as we found uranium we allready had enough. The bloke then goes on to calculate that we can take 16000 tonne per year of uranium from seawater, which would supply 25 times the world's present electricity usage and twice the world's present total energy consumption. Given the geological cycles of erosion, subduction and uplift, the supply would last for 5 billion years with a withdrawal rate of 6,500 tonne per year. Which is more than we can ever use before the sun becomes unstable making the earth uninhabitable and eventually swallowing it up. This would then mean that it is a renewable source of energy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bionic Balls Posted February 14, 2008 Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 matt...seriously read that again... 1.4x10^18 tonne is a huuuuuuuuuge number...and what about nuclear waste...?!?! that is the most pressing problem, not where to get uranium...!tim/trialsin man...sorry..but you just sound like what alot of brits think of americans- have some social responsibility?adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroMatt Posted February 14, 2008 Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 (edited) It is indeed a large number but consider the fact that oceans take up 71% of the surface area of the planet, that their average depth is 3730 m and the overall volume is 1185 million cubic km. Edited February 14, 2008 by ZeroMatt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim/Trialsin USA Posted February 14, 2008 Report Share Posted February 14, 2008 Sorry, guess the tongue in cheek sarcasm was lost in translation.Is going greener to our benefit? Absolutly, no one can argue that with a straight face. The question becomes, what level of governmental beaurocracy (historically the worst way of getting efficient anything) are we willing to tollerate?Per the CO2 stats, any "credible" source can be found to fit ones own point of view. This is true of all statistics. Rather than try to scare people into handing over individual choice to the government with statistics (never firm ground to stand on, pro or con), why not just simply try and address pollution. Even though Al Gores house uses VASTLY more power than the average US resident [including George Bush, sadly], he insists becasue he bought carbon credits its OK. What??? who is he kidding. Politicians promising to spend our money wisely (cough, cough) if you just give them enough gets us what we deserve, huge ammounts of waste and far too few innovations. Personally I feel the free market (antithetical to Al Gore), as it shoves the carbon based fuels higher and higher will make green technology competitive. I'll give my cash to a guy building wind mills over a government official any day of the week.Social responsibility, it lies with you and me.......not George Bush (thank god!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusevelt Posted February 28, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 (edited) More signs of global economic slowdown . the american dollar $ down to its lowest levels in the past 5yrs . no chance of seeing american tourists heading to london this summer damn yankies just kidding. good news for us brits if your planning a trip to the US. the $ is currently worth £0.50p to our £1.00 . but on a serious note thats bad news for the trials market in the US as well as the mountain bike market. Edited February 28, 2008 by Rusevelt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psycholist Posted February 28, 2008 Report Share Posted February 28, 2008 ZeroMatt: As soon as someone comes up with a method of extracting that 3.3e-9 kg of Uranium from a kg of seawater to make a net energy/value gain that idea might make some sense... It's not unlike filing down 10p coins to make 5p's with the processes currently available... Though at least Canada and Australia seem to have the big reserves, so there would be less volatility in the supply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusevelt Posted March 17, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2008 More economic downturn this week. approx 50 billion wiped off world financial markets, and things are likely to get worst before they better. how much worst and at what point will this affect the trials market, time will tell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psycholist Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 Usually the US goes to war with somebody when the economy is on a downturn to boost their big industries... They've already tried that option - not sure what they've got left now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim/Trialsin USA Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 Usually the US goes to war with somebody when the economy is on a downturn to boost their big industries... They've already tried that option - not sure what they've got left now... Unsupportable historical fiction at its best. Did you know the CIA was also responsible for the Bermuda Triangle?...ha, ha, ha..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psycholist Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 (edited) I was being quite sarcastic in my previous post though what I've said is not an unusual viewpoint. Given that every 'fact' used to justify the Iraq war was shown to be lies made up by the US or with US assistance it's no surprise it looks like a manufactured war. Same for Afghanistan, again the political regime running that country were complete scum, but they were not the September 11th terrorists. If the US wanted to cut terrorist funding they'd have to attack Saudi Arabia as that's where Bin Laden's money is and where most of the terrorists (14 out of 19) came from. But attacking a whole country to defeat a very small number of people with views that differ in an extreme way from the bulk population makes no sense anyway. That the wars were an economic decision is the most plausible explanation to be honest.If it's all about freedom and human rights then why haven't they sorted the countries which have already suffered decades under dictatorships/ethnic cleansing etc. in Africa or North Korea/China etc.? If it's about ending suffering why is the US the only westernised country (Apart from Finland for some reason) that hasn't agreed to ban landmines in the Ottawa treaty? Nobody who's not actually running their country should be expected to defend their government's actions, so this is not a personal attack, but speaking as a resident in a deliberately unmilitary country with negligible economic influence (Ireland) it scares the piss out of me how much blind faith the US media gives its citizens in everything they do being right. I actually met one American who refused to watch Farenheit 911 because watching it would be 'unpatriotic'. Not saying everything in that film is entirely true either, but not even being open to having your mind changed is a very dangerous sign and a conscious unwillingness to make use of the freedom of speech enshrined in the US constitution. I think this might have been same person who doesn't believe in DNA though, so possibly a bad example. Like the Mississippi school board who banned the use of fractions because the bible didn't mention them and declared the value of pi to be 3 again for biblical reasons. Or the people in Kentucky who raised 25 million dollars and have built a museum which claims to use science to convince people that dinosaurs and humans lived together in harmony after god made them all on the 6th day (I think) of creation (I'm pretty sure on the 7th day he rode trials) and the carnivores only turned nasty and started eating other animals after Adam and Eve ate the apple.And the CIA can't get me - I always have a tinfoil hat on so they can't modify my brainwaves ... Edited March 18, 2008 by psycholist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim/Trialsin USA Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 I was being quite sarcastic in my previous post though what I've said is not an unusual viewpoint. Given that every 'fact' used to justify the Iraq war was shown to be lies made up by the US or with US assistance it's no surprise it looks like a manufactured war. Same for Afghanistan, again the political regime running that country were complete scum, but they were not the September 11th terrorists. If the US wanted to cut terrorist funding they'd have to attack Saudi Arabia as that's where Bin Laden's money is and where most of the terrorists (14 out of 19) came from. But attacking a whole country to defeat a very small number of people with views that differ in an extreme way from the bulk population makes no sense anyway. That the wars were an economic decision is the most plausible explanation to be honest.If it's all about freedom and human rights then why haven't they sorted the countries which have already suffered decades under dictatorships/ethnic cleansing etc. in Africa or North Korea/China etc.? If it's about ending suffering why is the US the only westernised country (Apart from Finland for some reason) that hasn't agreed to ban landmines in the Ottawa treaty? Nobody who's not actually running their country should be expected to defend their government's actions, so this is not a personal attack, but speaking as a resident in a deliberately unmilitary country with negligible economic influence (Ireland) it scares the piss out of me how much blind faith the US media gives its citizens in everything they do being right. I actually met one American who refused to watch Farenheit 911 because watching it would be 'unpatriotic'. Not saying everything in that film is entirely true either, but not even being open to having your mind changed is a very dangerous sign and a conscious unwillingness to make use of the freedom of speech enshrined in the US constitution. I think this might have been same person who doesn't believe in DNA though, so possibly a bad example. Like the Mississippi school board who banned the use of fractions because the bible didn't mention them and declared the value of pi to be 3 again for biblical reasons. Or the people in Kentucky who raised 25 million dollars and have built a museum which claims to use science to convince people that dinosaurs and humans lived together in harmony after god made them all on the 6th day (I think) of creation (I'm pretty sure on the 7th day he rode trials) and the carnivores only turned nasty and started eating other animals after Adam and Eve ate the apple.And the CIA can't get me - I always have a tinfoil hat on so they can't modify my brainwaves ... Ha, ha, ha....I will have to try the tinfoil, the mixing bowl I was using seems to have only powers to protect me from MI5....blah, ha, ha.I think you need to understand something about media and the US. Most people in this country give little creadance to our own media!.....god forbid the rest of the world actrually take it seriously! This includes freaks like Michael Moore (completly discredited by all but the most viseral self haters and socialists), Rev Fallwell (some people just don't get that the world was not created in 7 days!). I will appologize to the world for this, for these feckless wonders most certainly do not represent this country nor is people (then again, politicians don't do a very good job of it...but I find that to be a universal truth worldwide). I did not vote for George Bush, nor was I a fan of going into the middle east. However, the giant paranoia machine that feeds some sort of conspiracy theory that all is run by dark sunglassed oil men, George Bush and secret rich societies is as over the top in believability as one man ridding all of Ireland of snakes (for which we have to endure green beer and shamrocks for one weekend a year..... easy now, I'm just teasing!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dan_addison Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 matt...seriously read that again... 1.4x10^18 tonne is a huuuuuuuuuge number...and what about nuclear waste...?!?! that is the most pressing problem, not where to get uranium...!tim/trialsin man...sorry..but you just sound like what alot of brits think of americans- have some social responsibility?adamYou Sir have hit the nail bang on the headFact of the matter is if global warming wasnt a problem poverty wouldnt be a problem. 3rd world countries would experiance there normal climates. Fact is if everyone did there bit there wouldnt be a problem! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simpson Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 I really couldn't bring myself to read half the stuff in this thread.Basically a recession occours because- Bonus's decrease- House Prices fall so people feel poorer- Intrest Rates go up so people borrow less- Less expensive goods are brought blah blah blah. Soon people will have more confidence and we will go into an upturn again its a theoretical certainty. And the genral trend of our economy always rises. Our problems happening because everyones refusing to let us go into recession, the sooner it happens the sooner we will see another boom. However most trials components are from China, so why discuss our economics? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash-Kennard Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 what about nuclear fusion rather than fission? that wouldnt produce much waste, well not of the radioactive kind, would just take some power to test the stations and actually get them going, but they have the potential to be self sufficient and produce vast amounts of energy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim/Trialsin USA Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 (edited) I really couldn't bring myself to read half the stuff in this thread.Basically a recession occours because- Bonus's decrease- House Prices fall so people feel poorer- Intrest Rates go up so people borrow less- Less expensive goods are brought blah blah blah. Soon people will have more confidence and we will go into an upturn again its a theoretical certainty. And the genral trend of our economy always rises. Our problems happening because everyones refusing to let us go into recession, the sooner it happens the sooner we will see another boom. However most trials components are from China, so why discuss our economics?Nothing to do with trials!...ha, ha, ha.... Though your point about the sooner we get into the recession the sooner we get out is historic/economic fact. While there were many, many reasons for the Great Depression (don't know what you called it there, but thats what we call the economic calamity of the 1930s here).... universally agreed by economist (left or right of center) is that what our governments did to try and help actually extended the problems by years. Before that time, economic downturns were called PANICS.... they were severe....but usually comparatively quite short. The reason is that everyone didn't sit around (individuals as well as companies) waiting for the government to help... they had to get moving immediatly to address their own needs....thus righting the economic well being of people as a whole quicker than politicians ever could.Its not compansionate, but economics is about numbers......... not warm and fuzzies!So, any one up for a discussion of the importance of the Falkland Islands wool on the commodities market?....blah, ha, ha, ha Edited March 18, 2008 by Tim/Trialsin USA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simpson Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 Nothing to do with trials!...ha, ha, ha....Thats why i don't understand the thread.... Price becombe objectivly more expensive (due to house prices falling, people earning less) But whats that got to do with the trials market? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gavyn. Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 The result of a reccesion will mean alu prices rising and manufacturers/distributers taking more money for themselves. This means trials parts will be come more expensive.I still don't think it'll happen yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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