[Michaelangelica]

HydrogenBond said:

Nuke power plants are most efficient at full power. When consumption is low, and they need to power down, this is done using materials that absorb the excess radiation (not used for power) lowering efficiency. A better strategy would be to always run at full power, and divert the excess output, during off peak, to make hydrogen gas.
.

or de-salinate water at night?
They have to have access to (sea?) water for cooling anyway.

"Pebble bed" technology looks like solving the melt-down problem. (One pebble bed reactor looks like being built in China in a few years.
There was a report on "Catalyst" (?) about it last week).

Thorium as a fuel stops the arm race problem and can actually use up plutonium.

Then you are only left with the waste problem (Which is much less with Thorium anyway)

"Dr. Karl's" reaction to coal power stations
In his book "Sensational Moments in Science", ABC Press, 2001.
He has an interesting take on coal power:-

"In 1982, some 111 (US)nuclear-fired power plants consumed about 540 tonnes of nuclear fuel.
In the same year, coal-fired power plants released over 800 tonnes of uranium." into the atmosphere.
"If a single nuclear-fired plant released 8K of uranium into the bio-sphere. there would be . .an enormous outcry."

He says the nuclear content of coal has not yet reached general public awareness in the same way that the greenhouse effect AIDs, or the ozone hole have.
There are no nuclear regulations about the disposal of coal ash

Coal apparently contains a heap of uranium and thorium
He concludes that you will get three times more radiation from a coal fired power plant than a nuclear fueled power plant!
That's if you include the complete nuclear fuel cycle mining, processing operating, disposal(!?)
If you don't include these your average coal-fired power plant puts out 100 times more radiation than a nuclear-fired plant.
p103-104

I wonder how much radioactive junk is floating about from coal?

Where are the men in white coats running about the countryside protecting our food chain and health?

[maikeru]

Carbon emissions trading as it's currently implemented doesn't seem to work so well. It's better than allowing countries and industries to freely pollute as they will, but I think the mindset of how carbon is treated and viewed must also change. In nature, many "waste" products in of themselves are valuable resources, which flow in continuous nutrient and elemental cycles. I have a problem with the mindset that treats CO2 as akin to toxic or hazardous waste. It's a rare approach like terra preta, which views carbon not as a toxic waste product but as a valuable resource, that changes the current paradigm entirely.

[pgrmdave]

For those who think that carbon trading is a good idea but not quite right, how can we fix carbon trading? It seems to me that increasing the cost of carbon would help quite a bit, how could we do this?

[Zythryn]

I think a straight carbon tax would work wonders. Make it a wopper too.
Announce it and tell companies it will be implimented in 5 years at full strength.
The companies that don't do anything to limit their emmisions will pass along the carbon tax to the end users. The companies that do limit their carbon tax, get to undercut the competition without lifting a finger. People will buy the lower priced stuff. Business that didn't lower carbon output is at a major disadvantage and changes or withers.

The only problem I see with it is if NO companies cut their carbon emmisions. However, if money is involved I don't think this will be an issue.

[Michaelangelica]

Just came across this while looking for something else
washingtonpost.com

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THE NEW ECO-CAPITALISM
When Being Green Puts You in the Black

By Daniel C. Esty
Sunday, March 4, 2007; Page B01

Are America's capitalist titans really going green?

This week's announcement that two of the country's largest privat
Moving from "command and control" regulations to a market approach to environmental protection means that there will be real costs for pollution -- including a price to be paid for greenhouse-gas emissions -- for every business.
But these costs sharpen the economic incentives for pollution control research and development, and create big opportunities for companies that come up with solutions for society's environmental problems.

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, CEOs fell over one another stepping up to the issue of climate change. Companies large and small are redoubling their environmental efforts in the face of Wal-Mart's demands that its suppliers reduce waste and improve energy efficiency. Billions of dollars of venture capital are flowing into alternative energy and pollution control technology. Leading companies -- call them "WaveRiders" -- have begun to fold environmental thinking into their corporate strategies.

[Michaelangelica]

Should I post this in the Theology Forum?

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Selling carbon indulgences

Posted on May 17, 2007
Filed Under Venture News, Venture Ideas, Energy Technology |

Greeen Cab, a taxi company in San Francisco, and TerraPass, startup founded by former Expedia CEO Erik Blachford, what do they have in common? They are environmentally conscience businesses monetizing on “feel guilty” sentiment . Green Cab drives only hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles. Terrapass sells carbon offsets.

How does Terrapass work? You took flight about 6,000 miles. Your share of carbon dioxide emissions is 2,500 lbs. You feel guilty. You buy Flight TerraPass for $9.99. TerraPass promise to spend $9.99 on noble causes works miracles for your sensitive conscience and balances your karma.

It reminds me indulgence, which is the prepaid full or partial absolution of sins practized by Roman Catholic Church in 15th century. Selling induldences was flourishing business.

Erik Blachford takes no risks by picking up historically proven business model.

Selling carbon indulgences | Venture Itch

[C1ay]

Augie Auer said:

Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.

Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained...

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."

The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.

More...

I'm still kind of waiting for someone to explain why the Mars caps are receeding at the same rate as Earth's if man made carbon is the cause of Earth's warming. Could it be the rovers we sent there?

[Zythryn]

There was a nice article on that very subject in the last Science journal. In short, the research they have done seems to point towards a change in albedo as the most likely culprit. I'll read up on it again and give you more detail.

[Zythryn]

Here we are, sorry for the delay.
It was not Science, it was the Nature Journal.
Global warming and climate forcing by recent albedo changes on Mars
Lori K. Fenton, Paul E. Geissler, Robert M. Haberle
From the April 5th issue, 2007.
Now, studying the climate of Mars is much more difficult than studying our own climate. However any possible links should be studied as best they can.

PS. you mentioned they are receeding at the same rate? Do we know that? I thought the mars southern cap was visibly receeding at a much greater rate? Is the northern cap receeding at all?

[C1ay]

Zythryn said:

PS. you mentioned they are receeding at the same rate? Do we know that? I thought the mars southern cap was visibly receeding at a much greater rate? Is the northern cap receeding at all?

It was in some news article I read about the time the news release came out that Mars was experiencing global warming as well. I can't remember exactly how it was worded but I do remember that it also stated that Mars has warmed by about the same amount as Earth over the same period. I'll see if I can find it.

[Michaelangelica]

Mars is stuffed.Earth is next

Quote

Watch more videos like this at QuantumShift.tv - Your Move..

This month I've been writing about carbon - what a carbon footprint is, how to calculate it, what it has to do with climate change, and so on.

Our modern lifestyles have released a lot of extra carbon into the atmosphere. Can we somehow trap it again? Trees trap carbon, so does the soil. Can I fly to Malaga as long as I pay someone to plant a bunch of trees for me? Does that work?

There's an interesting video about carbon sequestration which you should look at if you have about 9 minutes to spare. It explains how organic farming can help trap some excess carbon in the soil, which just adds to the long list of reasons why organic farming is a good idea. I love the guy who narrates it, Percy Schmeiser. He's pretty rubbish at looking natural in front of a camera and reading from a script, but this somehow makes his statements more convincing. He must know what he's talking about because he sure as hell wasn't chosen for his presenting abilities.

But that's different from paying someone to plant trees for you so you can fly to Malaga with a clear conscience. Carbon offsetting is a last-ditch option. It's like having chemotherapy when you've got cancer. You don't say "Oh, I might as well smoke as many cigarettes as I like because I can always have chemotherapy if I get cancer". Similarly we shouldn't say "It's perfectly OK to live a high-carbon lifestyle because I can afford to offset it by planting loads of trees someplace". It's a radical attempt to fix damage already done, not a "get out of jail free" card.

Yes, we should be planting trees, returning to organic farming, collecting methane and all the other carbon offsetting things. But we should be doing them to offset the damage we have already done, not as a sort of "indulgence" permitting us to carry on with our planet-damaging activities and still sleep soundly.

Bean Sprouts: What are Carbon Offsets?

[Michaelangelica]

I think this is all to much for Bears of little Brain.
The article is ten pages long (!)

Quote

Clean Development Mechanism
Without any practical way to force developing nations to control their emissions, the Kyoto signers instead reached a compromise known as the clean development mechanism.
Under this scheme, investors could earn credits for projects that cut emissions in developing nations even though the host country faced no binding restriction on its output of these gases.
A British firm that faces strict (and thus costly) limits on its emissions at home, for example, might invest to build wind turbines in China.
The company would then accrue credits for the difference between the “baseline” emissions that would have been released had the Chinese burned coal to generate electricity and the essentially zero emissions discharged by the wind farm.
China would gain foreign investment and energy infrastructure, while the British firm could meet its environmental obligations at lower cost because credits earned overseas are often less expensive than reducing emissions at home.

Making Carbon Markets Work (extended version): Scientific American

[Michaelangelica]

Is life too short to inform youself on all the things you need to know about saving the planet?

Quote

Carbon trading

Carbon trading has become the central pillar of international agreements aimed at slowing climate change. Proponents of this market-based approach to addressing an environmental crisis argue that carbon trading allows reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the most economical manner. What proponents of this market based-approach do not mention are the hidden consequences of carbon trading - the creation of a new commodity and of private property rights to the atmosphere, the hand-out of tradable pollution rights worth billions of euro to large emitters in industrialised countries free of charge. Through this process of creating a new commodity - carbon - the Earth's ability and capacity to support a climate conducive to life and human societies is now passing into the same corporate hands that are destroying the climate. Carbon trading will thus not contribute to achieving protection of the Earth's climate. It is a false solution which entrenches and magnifies social inequalities in many ways.

The public debate about these consequences of carbon trading has only just begun. The Durban conference on "Commodifying Carbon: Consequences and Strategies" , held in Durban, South Africa, in October 2004, brought together some 30 organizations from more than 15 countries to exchange information, analysis, and strategy ideas concerning the social, environmental and human problems posed by the emerging carbon market.

This page aims at providing access to the existing and emerging literature and analysis challenging the assumptions of the emerging carbon market.

Click here to read the Durban Call to Action or to sign the Durban Declaration on Carbon trading.

Read the Carbon Trade Watch report Hoodwinked in the Hothouse

Check out Carbon Trading - the different trades explained

Read about some lessons from the EUropean Union's flagship Emissions Trading Scheme here

Click here for links to the Durban Group's comprehensive critique of carbon trading, published by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation and edited by Larry Lohmann. Carbon Trading. Critical Conversations about Climate Change, Privatisation and Power. Send an email to info@fern.org

Read the Carbon Trade Watch report 'The Carbon Neutral Myth. Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins'

www.sinkswatch.org

[Michaelangelica]

Some more anti voices on carbon trading.
carbon trading | Raised Voices

Quote

Quote

EG
Hi, my name's Vanessa Black and I live in eThekwini in South Africa. I just want to say that I don't think that carbon trading is a way for us to solve climate problems which is one of the most serious problems we face at the moment. We can't just try to trade out way out of this. We all have to take this a lot more seriously and start thinking about how our economies are structured, how our lives are structured. It's not just about each individual trying to save energy alone.

It's about us all working together to live in a completely different way, where we're not relying on goods that are sent all over the world. Where we're not trading all over for things we could be growing in our own gardens or our backyard. It's about the way we plan our settlements. So that we're working and living and communicating with people around us, not completely isolated and then trading with people on the other side of the planet.

[Michaelangelica]

Quote

What to look for when purchasing carbon credits
Wednesday, 06 February 2008
. . .
. . .
the report found that:

* Some industrial companies are profiting from doing very little, or from gaining greenhouse gas credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
* Brokers are providing services of questionable or no value.
* A shortage of verification exists, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of greenhouse gas credits.
In fact, critics argue that the carbon offsets industry is allowing individuals, organisations and countries to think it is alright to keep polluting

. . .

In their RMIT report, Ribón and Scott developed a set of criteria that can help customers choose between offset products:

* Additionality: Would the project have occurred anyway without funding from greenhouse gas offsets?
* Baseline determination: Does the provider state commitments to a robust process to determine the baseline greenhouse gas emissions?
* Benefit quantification: Does the provider have a track record of accurate quantification of emissions reductions or has that provider had failures in the past? Do the figures quoted reflect uncertainties?
* Permanence: Are there risks of loss of greenhouse gas from bushfires and drought? Is there a risk that customers will not install compact fluorescents? Is there a potential for future reversal of sequestration?
* Ownership and registration: Is ownership of offsets clearly and formally registered? Is there any possibility of offsets being sold many times over?
* Monitoring and verification: Does the provider commit to regularly monitor, verify and report greenhouse gas offsets over time?

The fact is, because the voluntary greenhouse gas offsets market is immature, no universally accepted standards for product quality have yet gained market dominance.

What to look for when purchasing carbon credits (ScienceAlert)