Christmas Time

This is an appropriate time of the year to contemplate the impact of the man Jesus on humanity. We live in a culture that was completely shaped by his example and with the expectation that that example will be accepted globally. Notice that I am not saying his words. His accomplishment was to show others how to live and to initiate the protocol that brought others under his teachings.

His story is of a real person who had explored the sacred knowledge of his era and who used this knowledge and his own insights to shape the thinking of his disciples. And he told them to bring others into the fold of his teachings and taught them how. They are still doing it today some two thousand years later.

His successors folded into the story a palette of the mythologies then accepted by their contemporaries as they strived to make their founder divine. They felt that this was necessary to provide immediacy to the monotheistic doctrine that they championed. Perhaps it is.

Today, the mythologies become a distraction.

Yet his example and his concept of church became an organizing principal that washed away paganism and the barbarian dream. Yet many who live this western Christen culture proffer the conceit that we have something different by the mere fact that only a minority attend Christian services. Instead we need to understand that the air we breathe is a Christen air.

The continuing growth and acceptance of this culture has never slowed. Throughout its history, actual resistance has always caused it to strengthen and expand unless simply crushed.

It is appropriate that his birthday is honored by all throughout the world, for all have benefited from the success of his example and derivative movements.

Today, his example has freed most of the global population and we are seeing the way through for the balance. Following in his footsteps does not require faith. It is just the right thing to do.

Merry Christmas

arclein

Desert Reflections

Once in a while a bit of errant nonsense comes along to tease one’s usage of superlatives.

As I have noted. The desert fails to absorb solar energy because it does not have any place to put it. It dumps all of it back into space over the diurnal cycle. If we were to cover the entire Sahara as per this scheme under a reflective sheet, we may make the process more efficient because we prevent a portion been initially been absorbed by the sand and rock.

The fact is that once the sun sets, all that heat disappears back into space in a hurry as there is poor supply of heat retaining moisture. Every desert traveler has complained about the severe chill of the night from the earliest writers. It is so efficient, that it is fair to say that the direct effect of deserts on border lands is surprisingly moderate. What I mean is that deserts do not spawn vast storm systems and more realistically they eat storms systems by swiftly draining them of moisture, thus releasing even more heat into space.

This is of course a continuance of the strange idea that the world needs to be cooled off by mankind. It is my position that the deserts need to be reforested and restored to a moisture rich status so as to absorb all that incoming energy. This will warm the Northern hemisphere by a couple of degrees while creating livelihoods for another six billion or so people.

This restoration would restore climate conditions extant during the Bronze Age in which the northern climate was a couple of degrees warmer.

The past few months have seen no end of researchers attempting to tie their research to the global warming hysteria to better promote funding. This has created a background of noise that buries the good stuff.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222114546.htm

Fix For Global Warming? Scientists Propose Covering Deserts With Reflective Sheeting

ScienceDaily (Dec. 23, 2008) — A radical plan to curb global warming and so reverse the climate change caused by our rampant burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution would involve covering parts of the world's deserts with reflective sheeting, according to researchers writing in the International Journal of Global Environmental Engineers Takayuki Toyama of company Avix Inc in Kanagawa, Japan, and Alan Stainer of Middlesex University Business School, London, UK, complain that there have been very few innovative remedies discussed to combat the phenomenon of global warming caused by human activities, despite the widespread debate of the last few decades. They now suggest that uncompromising proposals are now needed if we are to avert ecological disaster.

Finding a way to 'stop', or at least minimise, global warming and to even cool the Earth can be achieved by focusing on the primary heat balance between the amount heat produced by human activities and the loss of heat to outer space. They emphasise that efforts to reduce atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, are not likely to work soon enough.

Pessimism that minimising carbon dioxide will no longer solve the problem seems to be spreading among environmental specialists," they say. As such, a lateral-thinking approach that acknowledges the fact that the heat created by human activities does not even amount to 1/10,000th of the heat that the earth receives from the sun.

Toyama and Stainer suggest that heat reflecting sheets could be used to cover arid areas and not only reflect the sun's heat back into space by increasing the Earth's overall reflectivity, or albedo, but also to act as an anti-desertification measure. The technology would have relatively minimal cost and lead to positive results quickly.

They add that the same approach might also be used to cover areas of the oceans to increase the Earth's total heat reflectivity.

The team's calculations suggest that covering an area of a little more than 60,000 square kilometres with reflective sheet, at a cost of some $280 billion, would be adequate to offset the heat balance and lead to a net cooling without any need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, they caution that it would be necessary to control the area covered very carefully to prevent overcooling and to continue with efforts to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

Journal reference:

1. Toyama et al. Cosmic Heat Emission concept to 'stop' global warming. International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 2009; 9 (1/2): 151 DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2009.022093

Peggy Korth on Cattail Culture

This article by Peggy Korth shows that cattail culture is advancing and we will monitor this. In particular, she is also associated with the marketing of a farm sized ethanol production unit made from off the shelf hardware. I will do a separate column on that. I am posting the article after our correspondence. Her efforts are well worth supporting as she is getting answers.



Hello Robert,

I thought the letter copied below may be of interest. The intent if such messages is to change the false precepts of overzealous informants who do not fully understand climate warming and certainly do not understand the food and fuel concept. Making all kinds of generalized statements about fuel ethanol can be quite detrimental to the use of an excellent fuel. With my system, we remediate both water and soil, we capture carbon dioxide from the air, we restore fallow land, we have ABUNDANT potential per acre for starch and sugar conversion, we have a new product to provide pulp and fiber without chemical farming or killing trees, we promote rural economic development, we provide new jobs and educational training, we provide low-cost safe equipment for the small and mid-sized producer, and the list goes on...

Out of courtesy, please do not quote the names of the recipient of the letter. The magazine did not respond because they want to holler about their point of view instead of finding solutions. In my opinion, unless the complainer is offering advice or alternative solutions, then that message is not constructive. Building hope relates to practical solution that can be implemented by communities and NOT dependent on big business or government.Also after working for fourteen years out of my own pocket, I intend to offer paid services and equipment that I helped forge through my input and support. I give generously to the public. Yet, I also expect the public to be responsible for their own future. In the past I have lived frugally and enjoyed a good professional life. Awakening the hope of the next generation means building a passion to make a difference for their own posterity.

Sustainable Technology Systems, Inc.

Peggy G. Korth, President
40 Sun Valley Dr., Spring Branch TX 78070
Cell: 512 757-4499, 830 885-4823; FAX 830 885-4827
Email: rpk@gvtc.com
September 25, 2008

Gentlemen,

####Over seven years ago I presented a concept to ##### concerning alternatives to corn as co-development. He patted me on the head and said, “Well, maybe someone will listen to you in ten years, but right now corn is king.”

And now people are starting to listen. Our company had developed a propagation and growing methodology to raise over a thousand gallons of fuel ethanol from cattails as a row crop. The limiting factors are wastewater availability, diverting a polluted stream, and/ or land adjacent to or nearby wastewater processing.

Furthermore, the concept of mega-sized production plants is not necessary or practical. Our engineers have developed farm-scale systems for bioenergy with an amalgamation of energy-savings adjuncts such as gasification from waste woody biomass and parabolic solar collectors to provide low-cost functionality.

Your discussion perpetuates a number of myths, as discussed in the recent Texas biofuels conference in Austin last week where we once again gave state officials information on both rhizome and stalk processing from cattail crops.

Numerous alternative crops are available and it is wise to advance small to mid-sized systems that will provide both the farmers and rural communities with a means for self-sufficiency serving first-responders and community based fleets. Your larger systems can serve the public interest if excess fuel is not available. However, our group DOES have a mechanism to impact the controversy and provide biofuels production systems as a real, doable, and affordable safety net to our rural communities.

Thanks you for your interest. Hopefully we can expand your horizons beyond the corn field. Best wishes,

Peggy


Water Assurance Technology Energy Resources—a 501C3 Educational and Research Organization dedicated to Clean air, Clean water, and Clean energy.

Peggy Korth, President 40 Sun Valley Drive, Spring Branch TX, 78070, 512 757-4499, F 830 885-4827, rpk@gvtc.com


Optimize bioenergy, remediate wastewater, and impact soil amelioration for communities through a methodology suitable to global adoption. Merged clean technologies begin with propagating cattails as a row crop adjacent to municipal wastewater treatment. A new applied methodology brings technological innovation to small and mid-sized bioenergy production units suitable for most any community. Abundant and renewable bioenergy provides a safety-net of security for fuel availability in conjunction with low-cost equipment design merging parabolic solar energy, gasification of invasive species, and waste from sewerage additionally reducing toxins, heavy metals, and drugs from wastewater streams. Furthermore, the benefits of building soil from sludge transforms here-to-fore barren land into fertile acres to grow additional energy and non-food crops.

Practical demonstration began with academic studies through a DOE grant. New feasibility studies related to climate influence are scheduled to begin in January 2009 in Otero County New Mexico—a barren desert with brackish ground water and rugged terrain. Forward-thinking town fathers promote systems for long-term renewable energy application. Supported by a conservation alliance, the United States Forest Service shares research and information gathering with our outstanding group of STS specialty associates. Novel industry application implements remediation and watershed services plus value-added benefits in rural economic development, homeland security, and practical solutions to community self-sufficiency. Modern technical application from spent feedstock residue extraction of pulp and fiber from feedstock waste opens new industry opportunities to the building materials and paper industries.

Collaboration with a research division of the University of New Mexico utilizing algae waste assists in soil building demonstrations. Through the efforts of Ms. Korth ‘Cattails to Ethanol’ is favorably embraced by numerous independent researchers and foreign communities. As new feedstock cattails offers over a thousand gallons of fuel ethanol per acre plus numerous benefits to provide ongoing affordable renewable energy.

Feasibility studies provide unique operating formats to bring most any global village into compliance while reducing surface flow pollution diverting contaminated, non-potable water through remediation beds accessed by unique harvesting equipment. By reducing the cost of operations and providing processing equipment that allows incremental expansion, facilities enlarge on a pay-as-you-go plan. Development of the concept began in the early 1980’s with academic validation of the concept.

Expanding that knowledge into additional beneficial processes brings new low-cost practicality to communities sustaining affordable quality-of-life programs and first responder fuel security.

As the principle of an adjunctive association of specialist working through Sustainable

Technology Systems, Inc. Peggy Korth has been featured at the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop and The World Biomass Conference presenting lectures and break-out sessions in How to Implement a Community Feasibility Study and Data Collection Basics, Small Scale Energy and Fuel Production for Farmers and Communities, Alternative Crop Efficiencies as well as developing training curriculum for biofuels programs. Ms. Korth authored two Small Scale bio-energy and Fuel Production text: Cattails to Ethanol and Bioenergy Business supporting producers in their due diligence and presentation preparation. Her compilation of the most comprehensive Bioenergy Glossary is being translated into Spanish. Ms. Korth’s USDA, SARE grant program, Livestock and Feedstock: Distiller’s Grain and Fuel Ethanol, proved dairy application benefits for farmers to produce their own fuel in farming operations. Additional environmental lectures are highlighted in Ms. Korth’s biographical summary which is available upon request.

There are good pictures here but we do not have a address for them so they will likely not survive pasting.

Two Surprises from NASA

These two reports last week from NASA reveal a much more dynamic space environment than had ever been imagined. It also reveals that our sensing tools are well started on mapping this environment although the process will go on for years.

Anyway, this is two surprises at once and bodes well for the next year or so.

Both these phenomena can impact on the energy transfer through the earth’s magnetic field which is looking a lot more volatile than thought. Is it meaningful? I simply have no idea here but suspect that modeling is possible and may surprise us.

It is the sort of thing that you wake up one morning and discover it really matters. I will watch for further information and speculations on this.

Solar Flare Surprise

12.15.2008

Dec. 15, 2008: Solar flares are the most powerful explosions in the solar system. Packing a punch equal to a hundred million hydrogen bombs, they obliterate everything in their immediate vicinity. Not a single atom should remain intact.

At least that's how it's supposed to work.

"We've detected a stream of perfectly intact hydrogen atoms shooting out of an X-class solar flare," says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. "What a surprise! These atoms could be telling us something new about what happens inside flares."

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/images/solarflaresurprise/296969main_flare_sxilabeled_HI.jpg

Above: The X9-class solar flare of Dec. 5, 2006, observed by the Solar X-Ray Imager aboard NOAA's GOES-13 satellite.

The event occurred on Dec. 5, 2006. A large sunspot rounded the sun's eastern limb and with little warning it exploded. On the "Richter scale" of flares, which ranks X1 as a big event, the blast registered X9, making it one of the strongest flares of the past 30 years.

NASA managers braced themselves. Such a ferocious blast usually produces a blizzard of high-energy particles dangerous to both satellites and astronauts. Indeed, moments after the explosion, radio emissions from a shock wave in the sun's atmosphere signaled that a swarm of particles was on its way.
An hour later they arrived. But they were not the particles researchers expected.

NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft made the discovery: "It was a burst of hydrogen atoms," says Mewaldt. "No other elements were present, not even helium (the sun's second most abundant atomic species). Pure hydrogen streamed past the spacecraft for a full 90 minutes."

Next came more than 30 minutes of quiet. The burst subsided and STEREO's particle counters returned to low levels. The event seemed to be over when a second wave of particles enveloped the spacecraft.

These were the "broken atoms" that flares are supposed to produce—protons and heavier ions such as helium, oxygen and iron. "Better late than never," he says.

At first, this unprecedented sequence of events baffled scientists, but now Mewaldt and colleagues believe they're getting to the bottom of the mystery.

First, how did the hydrogen atoms resist destruction?

"They didn't," says Mewaldt. "We believe they began their journey to Earth in pieces, as protons and electrons. Before they escaped the sun’s atmosphere, however, some of the protons recaptured an electron, forming intact hydrogen atoms. The atoms left the sun in a fast, straight shot before they could be broken apart again." (For experts: The team believes the electrons were recaptured by some combination of radiative recombination and charge exchange.)

Second, what delayed the ions?

"Simple," says Mewaldt. "Ions are electrically charged and they feel the sun's magnetic field. Solar magnetism deflects ions and slows their progress to Earth. Hydrogen atoms, on the other hand, are electrically neutral. They can shoot straight out of the sun without magnetic interference."

Imagine two runners dashing for the finish line. One (the ion) is forced to run in a zig-zag pattern with zigs and zags as wide as the orbit of Mars. The other (the hydrogen atom) runs in a straight line. Who's going to win?

"The hydrogen atoms reached Earth two hours before the ions," says Mewaldt.

Mewaldt believes that all strong flares might emit hydrogen bursts, but they simply haven't been noticed before. He's looking forward to more X-flares now that the two STEREO spacecraft are widely separated on nearly opposite sides of the Sun. (In 2006 they were still together near Earth.) STEREO-A and –B may be able to triangulate future bursts and pinpoint the source of the hydrogen. This would allow the team to test their ideas about the surprising phenomenon.

"All we need now," he says, "is some solar activity."

A Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field

12.16.2008

Dec. 16, 2008: NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to "load up" the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms. But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange and unexpected way it forms, overturning long-held ideas of space physics.

"At first I didn't believe it," says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This finding fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction."

The magnetosphere is a bubble of magnetism that surrounds Earth and protects us from solar wind. Exploring the bubble is a key goal of the THEMIS mission, launched in February 2007. The big discovery came on June 3, 2007, when the five probes serendipitously flew through the breach just as it was opening. Onboard sensors recorded a torrent of solar wind particles streaming into the magnetosphere, signaling an event of unexpected size and importance.

"The opening was huge—four times wider than Earth itself," says Wenhui Li, a space physicist at the University of New Hampshire who has been analyzing the data. Li's colleague Jimmy Raeder, also of New Hampshire, says "1027 particles per second were flowing into the magnetosphere—that's a 1 followed by 27 zeros. This kind of influx is an order of magnitude greater than what we thought was possible."

The event began with little warning when a gentle gust of solar wind delivered a bundle of magnetic fields from the Sun to Earth. Like an octopus wrapping its tentacles around a big clam, solar magnetic fields draped themselves around the magnetosphere and cracked it open. The cracking was accomplished by means of a process called "magnetic reconnection." High above Earth's poles, solar and terrestrial magnetic fields linked up (reconnected) to form conduits for solar wind. Conduits over the Arctic and Antarctic quickly expanded; within minutes they overlapped over Earth's equator to create the

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/images/giantbreach/breachmodel.jpg


Above: A computer model of solar wind flowing around Earth's magnetic field on June 3, 2007. Background colors represent solar wind density; red is high density, blue is low. Solid black lines trace the outer boundaries of Earth's magnetic field. Note the layer of relatively dense material beneath the tips of the white arrows; that is solar wind entering Earth's magnetic field through the breach. Credit: Jimmy Raeder/UNH. [larger image]


The size of the breach took researchers by surprise. "We've seen things like this before," says Raeder, "but never on such a large scale. The entire day-side of the magnetosphere was open to the solar wind."

The circumstances were even more surprising. Space physicists have long believed that holes in Earth's magnetosphere open only in response to solar magnetic fields that point south. The great breach of June 2007, however, opened in response to a solar magnetic field that pointed north.

"To the lay person, this may sound like a quibble, but to a space physicist, it is almost seismic," says Sibeck. "When I tell my colleagues, most react with skepticism, as if I'm trying to convince them that the sun rises in the west."

Here is why they can't believe their ears: The solar wind presses against Earth's magnetosphere almost directly above the equator where our planet's magnetic field points north. Suppose a bundle of solar magnetism comes along, and it points north, too. The two fields should reinforce one another, strengthening Earth's magnetic defenses and slamming the door shut on the solar wind. In the language of space physics, a north-pointing solar magnetic field is called a "northern IMF" and it is synonymous with shields up!

"So, you can imagine our surprise when a northern IMF came along and shields went down instead," says Sibeck. "This completely overturns our understanding of things."

Northern IMF events don't actually trigger geomagnetic storms, notes Raeder, but they do set the stage for storms by loading the magnetosphere with plasma. A loaded magnetosphere is primed for auroras, power outages, and other disturbances that can result when, say, a CME (coronal mass ejection) hits.

The years ahead could be especially lively. Raeder explains: "We're entering Solar Cycle 24. For reasons not fully understood, CMEs in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a CME should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway. It's the perfect sequence for a really big event."

Sibeck agrees. "This could result in stronger geomagnetic storms than we have seen in many years."

A video version of this story may be found here. For more information about the THEMIS mission, visit http://nasa.gov/themis

Classic Winter not News

I find it rather frustrating that overt media bias is preventing the major climate story to not get properly told. When last checked global temperatures had dropped 0.7 degrees and we can assume that we are experiencing an additional drop to be expressed in the next set of numbers.

This was calculated from the same sources that gave us rising temperatures for a decade and flat temperatures for the past decade. That total gain was perhaps the same size. So what is everyone waiting for? It takes two decades to warm the northern hemisphere 0.7 degrees and perhaps six months to reverse it totally. That is not a big story. Are they waiting for confirmation? Try looking outside your window.

What we know of climate change history has always said the same thing. The warming is slow and gradual while the chilling is abrupt. This looks like a chill out and it is likely good for another year or more. The next set of numbers should show even more decline.

The mechanism for all this is becoming a lot clearer. Incoming heat is unevenly distributed between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres through oscillations focused on the Pacific which is half the planet. When surplus heat is pumped into the north across the equator the PDO shifts it north and if necessary discharges the surplus into the Arctic as occurred in 2007. When that occurs the elastic band snaps back and we catch a surge of cold weather. Sound familiar?

The problem of course is that the effects of CO2 are impossible to separate out from this type of decadal cycle. We certainly do not have the centuries of accurate Arctic weather information to compare. Maybe we should be excited because we melted some sea ice this time around. Or more likely, we should be disappointed and get serious about planting trees in the Sahara.

I am trying to say that this snap back of global temperatures is a hell of a story and absolutely no one is picking up on it. What are they thinking? Their only evidence just strode out the door. Isn’t anyone brave enough to stand up and simply say that the party is over?

I want to see a credible climate scientist stand up and say this reversal is a temporary move and that the fundamentals are good for a swift return to global warming. I used to sell stock in gold mines too. Of course they are all hiding, depending on how bravely they supported the CO2 theory.

I suspect that the rest of the crowd, who are too lazy to keep a close eye on the data will keep talking global warming while we continue to have a good old fashioned multi blizzard winter well into March. How do you like it so far?

I know that this is just one winter and that last winter was the actual beginning of a cold cycle, but this really feels like we are back in the fifties for foul weather. I was just a kid then, but that sort of foul abated into the sixties and had almost disappeared running into the nineties and most recently. It was apt that they measured sea ice thickness in 1959 and likely caught the maxima. 2007 gave us a pretty good minimum.

Making Primitive Biochar

Those who have followed my blog know that I proposed a method for producing biochar that was plausible inside the limitations placed on an antique society living in the Amazon rainforest. Key to the time and place was the use of maize as the principal source material. That this was so was confirmed by published pollen studies and by more recent translations of sixteenth century reports from southern Brazil which described widespread maize culture.

When I began my thought experiment, the presence of maize seemed very unlikely in view of the known dynamics of rainforest soils. Yet I needed a plant that produced packable waste that could be handled without steel tools. Wood was both high cost in human energy inputs and very resistant to charring and crushing. Most other crops simply failed to produce both a crop and much biomass. No primitive farmer was going to plant a stand-alone char feedstock and lose a season.

This is where corn or maize came in. It produced a stable easy to store high volume crop that also produced perhaps ten tons per acre of corn stover. This stover was also very packable because there are no branches. What made it more attractive was the root ball which is in the form of a disc and is often very easy to pull out of the soil. Thus a field could be stripped of its ripe corn and then stripped easily of its stover.

Stacking the stalks was easily accomplished and using the root balls to form an outer wall simply a matter of paying attention. The key idea was to provide an outer shell of mud that closed off the packed stover. Now they did not have a sheet of metal foil to add another heat resistant air tight layer, so it is likely that they slathered on a thin layer of river clay to form a air tight seal. Again field experiments will inform us as to the extent that this is all necessary.

At the end of the day, without any tools, we have a thin clay dome or a mud dome enclosing ten tons of packed stover.

This is then loaded with a charge of burning coals. I have considered top down but suspect that simply feeding a charge in through the bottom perhaps along a narrow trench will be good enough. A small amount of air will be drawn to the charge maintaining the heat production and the produced heat will steadily reduce the maize very quickly. Gasses will be captured and ignite as the burn progresses steadily reducing the load.

Eventually the whole load will collapse upon which it will be smothered with more dirt.

I had originally envisaged this process taking many hours, however corn stover is like paper and merely needs to be heated for it to curl up and quickly decompose.

Ten tons or one acres production would give us three tons of biochar which is ample for that one acre, particularly if one goes the extra step of creating seed hills on only a third of the surface. In one season, you are in business. The one remaining mystery is why this method failed to make it out of the Amazon, because it would have nicely augmented the three sisters throughout the Americas. Or perhaps it did and we simply never noticed or our steel got there first and disease got there first.

Global Coal Reserves

This piece surprised me because it challenges the integrity of reported reserves by government agencies. He is saying that historically governments have seriously overstated coal reserves and that this process continues.

I beg to differ. Governments will report a resource rather than a reserve. The resource is the total amount of material that might or could be mined regardless of cost. Canada has a 1.7 trillion barrel resource in the tar sands. It has a reserve of 175 billion barrels economically available for now.

Once cost becomes an issue we are talking about reserves. These measure what can be reasonably mined in view of current costs and selling prices. A lot of perfectly good coal will get reclassified as rock.

The one thing that I learned about the mining industry is perfectly good ore reserves turn into rock amazingly often. In fact we are living through one such transition right now.

Double the selling price of coal and I am sure that vast new resources will spring up. Let me put this another way. I have inspected my share of oil drilling logs. Every so often another coal seam will be typically encountered since we normally drill in sedimentary basins. They are all too deep to ever consider mining for the present. None of these are ever even counted as resources.

It is obvious that the USA can double their resource estimate by the simple expedient of measuring deeper. At least it would be more ethical than the resources added by OPEC.

And a note on that. Few understand that the first two discovery wells in a new field plus seismic has proven sufficient to define proven oil reserves. It is very unlikely that later work will significantly increase that figure. In fact the reverse is likely. Those vast new OPEC reserves announced in the eighties did not coincide with new field discoveries. Therefore they are fairy tales.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/world-coal-rese.html

World Coal Reserves Could Be a Fraction of Previous Estimates

By Alexis Madrigal December 17, 2008 6:29:35 PMCategories: AGU 2008, Clean Tech, Energy, Geology

SAN FRANCISCO — A new calculation of the world's coal reserves is much lower than previous estimates. If validated, the new info could have a massive impact on the fate of the planet's climate.

That's because coal is responsible for most of the CO2 emissions that drive climate change. If there were actually less coal available for burning, climate modelers would have to rethink their estimates of the level of emissions that humans will produce.

The new model, created by Dave Rutledge, chair of Caltech's engineering and applied sciences division, suggests that humans will only pull up a total — including all past mining — of 662 billion tons of coal out of the Earth. The best previous estimate, from the World Energy Council, says that the world has almost 850 billion tons of coal still left to be mined.

"Every estimate of the ultimate coal resource has been larger," said ecologist Ken Caldeira of Stanford University, who was not involved with the new study. "But if there's much less coal than we think, that's good news for climate."

The carbon dioxide emitted when humans burn coal to create usable energy is primarily responsible for global warming. Leading scientists think that the stability of Earth's climate will be dictated by how the world uses — or doesn't use — its coal resources. And the thinking has been that the world has more than enough coal to wreak catastrophic damage to the climate system, absent major societal or governmental changes.

So the new estimate, which opens the slim possibility that humankind could do nothing to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions and still escape some of the impacts of climate change, comes as quite a shock.

Rutledge argues that governments are terrible at estimating their own fossil fuel reserves. He developed his new model by looking back at historical examples of fossil fuel exhaustion. For example, British coal production fell precipitously form its 1913 peak. American oil production famously peaked in 1970, as controversially predicted by King Hubbert. Both countries had heartily overestimated their reserves.

It was from manipulating the data from the previous peaks that Rutledge developed his new model, based on fitting curves to the cumulative production of a region. He says that they provide much more stable estimates than other techniques and are much more accurate than those made by individual countries.

"The record of geological estimates made by governments for their fossil fuel estimates is really horrible," Rutledge said during a press conference at the American Geological Union annual meeting. "And the estimates tend to be quite high. They over-predict future coal production."

More specifically, Rutledge says that big surveys of natural resources underestimate the difficulty and expense of getting to the coal reserves of the world. And that's assuming that the countries have at least tried to offer a real estimate to the international community. China, for example, has only submitted two estimates of its coal reserves to the World Energy Council — and they were wildly different.

"The Chinese are interested in producing coal, not figuring out how much they have," Rutledge said. "That much is obvious."

The National Research Council's Committee on Coal Research, Technology, and Resource Assessments to Inform Energy Policy actually agrees with many of Rutledge's criticisms, while continuing to maintain far sunnier estimates of the recoverable stocks of American coal.

"Present estimates of coal reserves are based upon methods that have not been reviewed or revised since their inception in 1974, and much of the input data were compiled in the early 1970’s," the committee wrote in a 2007 report. "Recent programs to assess reserves in limited areas using updated methods indicate that only a small fraction of previously estimated reserves are actually mineable reserves.”

And don't look to technology to bail out coal miners. Mechanization has actually decreased the world's recoverable reserves, because huge mining machines aren't quite as good at digging out coal as human beings are.

With Rutledge's new numbers, the world could burn all the coal (and other fossil fuels) it can get to, and the atmospheric concentration of CO2 would only end up around 460 parts per million, which is predicted to cause a 2-degree-Celsius rise in global temperatures.

For many scientists, that's too much warming. A growing coalition is calling for limiting the CO2 in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, down from the 380 ppm of today, but it's a far cry from some of the more devastating scenarios devised by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"Coal emissions really need to be phased out proactively — we can't just wait for them to run out — by the year 2030," said Pushker Kharecha, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "There is more than enough coal to keep CO2 well above 350 ppm well beyond this century."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses economic models that assume that the world will not run out of coal. Some IPCC scenarios show 3.4 billion tons of coal being burned just through 2100.

That's more than five times what Rutledge thinks will be possible — and a good deal higher than the WEC's estimate for recoverable coal reserves, too.

On the other hand, if the world were really to encounter a swift and steep decline in accessible coal resources, it's unclear how humans could retain our current levels of transportation, industry and general energy-usage.

So, even if coal were to run out and the most dangerous climate change averted, the imperative to develop non–fossil-fuel energy sources would remain.

"Peak Oil and peak gas and peak coal could really go either way for the climate," Kharecha said. "It all depends on choices for subsequent energy sources."

Cap and Trade

Today it is time to talk about cap and trade. I am sure now that it is going to be imposed as a priority program in the USA and very likely in both India and China. It can become the first international revenue/expenditure model in place that will help create common cause on a global scale.

It took the fear of global warming (wrong reason) to make this program possible. By monetizing the disposal of CO2, it becomes profitable to solve the problem. This means that it creates demand for solutions that is driven by something other than altruism. I have thought for years that any and all waste disposal problems were best monetized just like this so that the invisible hand of the market can do its magic. Otherwise that invisible hand is quite happy to send it downstream unto its neigbours.

We have reached an historical pass in which even the statist gimme crowd supports such an idea, although they would never admit that they are calling on Adam Smith. It is actually the right thing to do and it needs to be fully internationalized, while grandfathering and scheduling out the advantage players, including India and China.

I find it offensive that we have torn down obsolete super polluters and shipped them off to China. These are now twenty years older and long paid for and surely ready for disposal. Much better technologies are now available and need to be encouraged by fast write offs and loan support.

A really good start in the USA since the cash value of a ton of carbon may be about $40.00 would be to convert all agricultural subsidies into carbon credits upon the farm sequestering the appropriate ton of carbon in the farm’s soils. If Europe did the same, we will have killed two birds with one stone. The farmers will actually earn their subsidies. The subsidies will no longer be paid by the tax payer but by the carbon polluters. With any luck that will jump start the terra preta soil revolution in the USA.

It will also establish a new global agricultural regime that will be more easily directed into extending these same systems everywhere else. I would love to subsidize new terra preta soils in the Phillipines at the rate of $40 per acre per year per ton of carbon while converting tropical soils into lush croplands forever. That would swiftly put millions to work establishing family farms like the family farms that existed in the Amazon for thousands of years. And modern mechanization allows these operations to be economically sized and operated.

This will also swiftly end slash and burn agriculture.

I know that this can be done right. My misgivings come from the unlimited capacity of the stupid and ignorant to divert programs like this into their own dreams of self aggrandizement, making it all messy for everyone else.

We only need to look at the ease which the mortgage industry bought off Congress to prolong their death spiral to know how possible this is. Can we keep them honest or do we have to walk through a history of swindles before it is done right? I am not too trusting these days.

Roosevelt and his brain trust did get a lot of things right back in the thirties. That is why I was so disturbed when Congress merrily took of the governors as a late action of the Clinton administration. To be followed by a smuck whose grasp of economic history was modest and clearly prone to been hoodwinked by folks he thought were on his side.

Obama and his brain trust have an opportunity to get this right, principally because the folks in office on both sides of the house have a lot to account for. But he better be prepared for an arm wrestle. Clinton ran into an unchastened house that was unprepared to give up anything and this immediately emasculated him for the entirety of his mandate.

So far Obama’s cabinet choices are fairly conservative and certainly careful. And he already knows what is top of the agenda as the auto industry has been given a stay of execution for three months to sort things out.

By the way, a subsistence farmer can be expected, using terra preta, to sequester one ton per year of carbon while upgrading one acre of soil per year. Therefore, removing 100,000,000 tons of carbon per year requires 100,000,000 families to be paid $40 for a total of $4 billion dollars. Maybe we can get Mohammed Younis to administer the program rather than the UN.


Connecting the Carbon Dots

By Nick Hodge Friday, December 19th, 2008
Pee-Wee Herman used to sing, "Connect the dots... laa la laa la laa," as he leapt into the magic screen.

No, I haven't been hanging out with Pee-Wee in movie theaters. But his advice on connecting the dots is applicable in the context of financial and political realms... and the trends and investment ideas that emerge.

Since the election in November, a series of dots have been emerging that indicate it's time to take a serious look at recently-established carbon ETFs and ETNs.

Connecting the Carbon Dots

In naming his climate change and energy team last week, Mr. Obama nominated Lisa Jackson to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

In her previous position, Jackson led the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, where she is credited with helping put New Jersey in a leadership role on the issue of climate change and with encouraging the state to adopt a moratorium on building new coal plants.

She also championed the reduction of emissions. And, in 2007, New Jersey became the third state, behind California and Hawaii, to pass a law that mandates steep emissions cuts over the next four decades.

New Jersey, under Jackson's direction, also helped establish the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the first mandatory, market-based CO2 emissions reduction program in the United States.

A "market-based" program means it is possible to profit from reducing emissions.

And I suspect, under her leadership, the EPA will push through a similar measure that covers the entire country. You may know it as a cap-and-trade system.

Her new boss is certainly on board. The 'agenda' section of his website has the following three things to say about changing our carbon habits:

· Reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions 80 Percent by 2050

· Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050

· Make the U.S. a Leader on Climate Change.

Obama has already said he'll consider asking the EPA to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act, which is something they should've been doing already, but Bush declined to do so after saying that such a plan would turn the EPA into the "de facto regulator of the economy."

In response, Jackson sent a forceful letter to the EPA saying that "the past eight years have demonstrated a shocking, yet consistent, irresponsibility on the part of the federal government to engage in any meaningful way... in implementing sustainable solutions to reduce emissions."

I think the policies she intends to carry out in her new position are clear.

Here we have an attack rant against cap and trade. He is right of course, if no carbon ever gets sequestered, and he is not about to investigate the possibilities. The object is to monetize the carbon waste stream. My object is to use that to monetize the two billion or so subsistence farmers so that their enterprise is recognized as capital.



The Cap And Trade Fraud - Global Warming Scams

by Jack Ward

The big buzz in the political world is 'cap and trade'. What is cap and trade and where did this idea come from?

The cap and trade concept came from the UN's Kyoto Protocols. Cap and trade is based on the flawed premise that anthropogenic activities (humans) are causing global warming by increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. The American Physical Society (APS), which represents nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its previous position on climate change. APS editor, Jeffrey Marque said, "There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the ICCP (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution." The UN IPCC computer modeling contains numerous exaggerations and extensive errors which led to the global warming hoax.

Virtually all human activities (work and play) results in the release of CO2. A cap and trade scheme would limit the release of CO2 that countries, corporations, and individuals could emit. Those that exceed this arbitrary carbon cap would be required to buy or trade a carbon credit from a country, corporation or individual that did not exceed the arbitrary cap. A carbon credit is a permit that allows a country, corporation, or an individual to emit a specified amount of carbon dioxide. These credits are bought and sold on carbon trading markets just like stocks. Contrary to stocks that have an actual value, the value of carbon credits is artificially created by governments for the sole purpose of generation income from a commodity that has no actual value. In a free market economy no one in their right mind would pay good money for a commodity that has no value without government coercion.

The buying, selling, and trading carbon credits will not remove one molecule of CO2 from the atmosphere. But, the purpose is not to eliminate CO2, it is to generate income for the government, redistribute wealth, and control the people. Yet Obama said, "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers."

According to the Congressional Budget Office this new energy tax will cost businesses and individuals trillions of dollars. In addition, legislative analysts have predicted that millions of jobs will be lost if legislation implementing the cap and trade proposal is passed. Once these schemes are allowed, the government will be able to regulate and control all carbon emissions. This will give the government complete control over travel, lifestyle and what ever businesses and citizens consume and produce. This is the change Obama desires.

Cap and trade advocates chose the Hegelian Dialectic to sell this draconian plan. Georg Hegel's theory of the dialectic was used by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels to sell their economic theory of Communism. The Hegelian Dialectic is used to guide thoughts and actions that lead to a predetermined solution. Here is how it's done:

* First, create a problem of monumental proportions.

* Second, stir up hysteria by every means possible.

* Third, when people hysterically demand a solution to the contrived problem, offer predetermined solutions that will take away rights, cost considerable money, and put more power in the hands of the power-grabbing bureaucrats.

Global warming zealots are using the Hegelian Dialectic to push their environmental agenda to the detriment of the American people. People are being brainwashed into believing the planet is being threatened by global warming. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, even claims that she was elected to 'save the planet'. Al Gore, the self appointed high priest of global warming, lectures everyone to reduce their energy consumption. But don't be fooled. Neither Peolsi nor Gore walks the walk. Both are multi-millionaires that live in energy gobbling mansions.

These elitist Liberals want to re-create a serf / royalty society, with them representing the royalty class. You will know when this global warming hype is for real when Gore, Pelosi, and their ilk give up the amenities of the 'rich and famous' and live in 1600 sq. ft. houses, fly coach, and use mass transit. Until then, their hot air is the cause of global warming. Every aspect of your life will be adversely affected if our politicians are allowed to implement any of these fraudulent cap and trade schemes.

Jack Ward is an independent columnist

Post 1492 Reforestration

Without a doubt, an explanation for the Little Ice Age is a priority item on my personal to do list. Here we are introduced to a factor that I certainly have overlooked and may turn out to be valid. We do not know the real extend of pre Columbian agriculture except to recently recognize that slash and burn was not part of the program.
The early explorers in North America found woodlands and small tracts but that was a century after Columbus and several centuries after a previous economic high. A die off could have progressed generation by generation penalizing organized high density populations whose remnants merged with less organized groups.

The few reports we have out of the Amazon is saying the same thing. The real question is what size of population was necessary to create the warmer original regime as per this theory. Viewed in reverse, it quickly becomes much less convincing and sounds more like an argument in favor of today’s global warming theory.

In the event, strong reforestation was taking place, as is happening today in the East.

I am inclined to think that expanding forests will absorb more of the incoming solar energy and thereby add to the Earth’s total heat.

In any case, this is a factor that is quite real whose effect may be measurable and needs to be accounted for. The problem is that we have a very poor understanding of the impact.

We know that the Bronze Age saw the stripping of the Sahara coinciding with the end of the two millennia climate optimum that was warmer than the present. This is explained easily by understanding that the Earth lost the ability of the Sahara to absorb and hold heat. Since then we have had a well frozen Arctic and a cooler regime in Europe with some warm pauses.

That is why I am a little hesitant to assign an extended little ice age to this cause, but the carbon ratios and the decline in atmospheric CO2 certainly points at a contemporaneous shift in biomass size independent of the weather.

New World Post-pandemic Reforestation Helped Start Little Ice Age, Say Scientists

ScienceDaily (Dec. 19, 2008) — The power of viruses is well documented in human history. Swarms of little viral Davids have repeatedly laid low the great Goliaths of human civilization, most famously in the devastating pandemics that swept the New World during European conquest and settlement.

In recent years, there has been growing evidence for the hypothesis that the effect of the pandemics in the Americas wasn't confined to killing indigenous peoples. Global climate appears to have been altered as well.

Stanford University researchers have conducted a comprehensive analysis of data detailing the amount of charcoal contained in soils and lake sediments at the sites of both pre-Columbian population centers in the Americas and in sparsely populated surrounding regions. They concluded that reforestation of agricultural lands—abandoned as the population collapsed—pulled so much carbon out of the atmosphere that it helped trigger a period of global cooling, at its most intense from approximately 1500 to 1750, known as the Little Ice Age.

"We estimate that the amount of carbon sequestered in the growing forests was about 10 to 50 percent of the total carbon that would have needed to come out of the atmosphere and oceans at that time to account for the observed changes in carbon dioxide concentrations," said Richard Nevle, visiting scholar in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences at Stanford. Nevle and Dennis Bird, professor in geological and environmental sciences, presented their study at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on Dec. 17, 2008.

Nevle and Bird synthesized published data from charcoal records from 15 sediment cores extracted from lakes, soil samples from 17 population centers and 18 sites from the surrounding areas in Central and South America. They examined samples dating back 5,000 years.

What they found was a record of slowly increasing charcoal deposits, indicating increasing burning of forestland to convert it to cropland, as agricultural practices spread among the human population—until around 500 years ago: At that point, there was a precipitous drop in the amount of charcoal in the samples, coinciding with the precipitous drop in the human population in the Americas.

To verify their results, they checked their fire histories based on the charcoal data against records of carbon dioxide concentrations and carbon isotope ratios that were available.

"We looked at ice cores and tropical sponge records, which give us reliable proxies for the carbon isotope composition of atmospheric carbon dioxide. And it jumped out at us right away," Nevle said. "We saw a conspicuous increase in the isotope ratio of heavy carbon to light carbon. That gave us a sense that maybe we were looking at the right thing, because that is exactly what you would expect from reforestation."

During photosynthesis, plants prefer carbon dioxide containing the lighter isotope of carbon. Thus a massive reforestation event would not only decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but would also leave carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that was enriched in the heavy carbon isotope.

Other theories have been proposed to account for the cooling at the time of the Little Ice Age, as well as the anomalies in the concentration and carbon isotope ratios of atmospheric carbon dioxide associated with that period.

Variations in the amount of sunlight striking the Earth, caused by a drop in sunspot activity, could also be a factor in cooling down the globe, as could a flurry of volcanic activity in the late 16th century.

But the timing of these events doesn't fit with the observed onset of the carbon dioxide drop. These events don't begin until at least a century after carbon dioxide in the atmosphere began to decline and the ratio of heavy to light carbon isotopes in atmospheric carbon dioxide begins to increase.

Nevle and Bird don't attribute all of the cooling during the Little Ice Age to reforestation in the Americas.
"There are other causes at play," Nevle said. "But reforestation is certainly a first-order contributor."

Enhancing Evaporation

Every idea needs a champion and Ron Ace is cheer leading the idea of blasting sea water into the atmosphere beside deserts and the West African coast in particular. The idea is not wrong per se but the methods described scream excessive energy and other issues.

I posted over a year ago on work been done beside the desert coast in which water was lifted and then dripped through an exchange mat in conjunction with a greenhouse operation. It was essentially doing the same thing a lot more efficiently and pragmatically.

We already know that humid air can be exploited with the Eden Machine to grow trees that respirate the same water for a downstream repetition ad infinitum. The weakness occurs in those places were the onshore winds are dry. There is no humidity to start with.

It is thus possible that a coastal structure can be designed to produce humid air. The problem is to produce a lot of humid air. A six foot layer hardly cuts it. It is just that I am not so sure even a two hundred foot lave would be enough either.

The greenhouse system would work but only to produce a thin layer of very humid air. A more practical idea may be to integrate it with our windmills. Jetting sea water out of the trailing edge of the air foils can be tuned so that it all evaporates and little energy expended. Staggering the mills in echelon inland should allow a maximum amount of air to be moistened in this manner. Perhaps this can be combined with the greenhouse idea.

This is certainly mega engineering on a grand scale, but again can be built out in economic bite sized pieces over longer time scales allowing the advancing woodlands and populations to keep pace,


Inventor: Evaporation units could cool Earth

Some scientists find idea intriguing, others scoff at plan

By GREG GORDON

Mcclatchy-tribune
Dec. 20, 2008, 5:43PM

Ron Ace has studied the Earth's climate cycles for three years and has filed for a patent on a way to prevent global warming that his computer models show is effective, but others question his work.

WASHINGTON — Ron Ace says that his breakthrough moments have come at unexpected times — while he lay in bed, eased his aging Cadillac across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge or steered a tractor around his rustic, five-acre property.

In the seclusion of his Maryland home, Ace has spent three years glued to the Internet, studying the Earth's climate cycles and careening from one epiphany to another — a 69-year-old loner with the moxie to try to solve one of the greatest threats to mankind.

Now, backed by a computer model, the little-known inventor is making public a U.S. patent petition for what he calls the most "practical, nontoxic, affordable, rapidly achievable" and beneficial way to curb global warming and a resulting catastrophic ocean rise.

Spray gigatons of seawater into the air, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, and let Mother Nature do the rest, he says.

The evaporating water, Ace said, would cool the Earth in multiple ways: First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation.

McClatchy Newspapers has followed Ace's work for three years and obtained a copy of his 2007 patent petition for what he calls "a colossal refrigeration system with a 100,000-fold performance multiplier."

"The Earth has a giant air-conditioning problem," he said. "I'm proposing to put a thermostat on the planet."

Although it might sound preposterous, a computer model run by an internationally known global warming scientist suggests that Ace's giant humidifier might just work.

Effects would be immediate

Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, roughly simulated Ace's idea in recent months on a model that's used extensively by top scientists to study global warming.

The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said.

"In the computer simulation, evaporating water was almost as effective as directly transferring ... energy to space, which was surprising to me," he said.

Ace said that the cooling effect would be several times greater if the model were refined to spray the same amount of seawater at strategic locations.

He proposes to install 1,000 or more devices that spray water 20 to 200 feet into the air from barren stretches of the West African coast, bluffs on deserted Atlantic Ocean isles, deserts adjoining the African, South American and Mediterranean coasts and other arid or windy sites.

To maximize cloud formation, he'd avoid the already humid tropics, where most water vapor quickly turns to rain.

"It does seem like evaporating water outside the tropics would be more effective," Caldeira said.

Buying time for research

Several scientists who reviewed Ace's patent petition for McClatchy reacted with caution to outright derision over its possibilities, but some softened their views upon learning of the computer model.

It would be relatively easy to design spraying equipment to carry out his plan to fill that water vapor deficit, but it would take a major international effort to install 1,000 large spraying devices, or thousands of smaller ones.

If fully deployed, the 15,800 cubic meters of sprayed water per second would be equivalent to the flow at the mouth of the Mississippi River and would require enough energy to power a medium-sized city.

However, spraying only a portion of that amount for a decade would be enough to cool the equivalent of current man-made global warming, estimated to range up to 0.76 degrees Fahrenheit, Ace said.

Such cooling, he said, could buy mankind decades of time for more research and precision.

Ace has his doubters, partly because he took the patent route rather than submitting his idea for scientific peer review. A patent certifies that an invention is unique, not that it would work.

David Travis, a University of Wisconsin-Whitewater professor who's studied clouds extensively, praised Ace's innovation, but said he's "generally opposed to geo-engineering" solutions and can't imagine evaporating water on a large enough scale to have a near-term effect.

Caldeira, who plans to submit his computer findings for peer-reviewed publication, is among scientists so concerned about sluggish progress in curbing greenhouse gases that they met last year to consider geo-engineering options.

One thing is certain: Ace is dead serious. He's tenaciously compiled more than a thousand pages of research, sometimes during all-night binges despite a fight with cancer. He said he's invested large sums in patenting his global-warming inventions.

EEStor Patent Released

Here is the link to the EEStor patent released December 16th or two days ago. It clarifies a great deal and demonstrates a developing practice that fits the powdered and coated barium titanite protocol. The descriptions are also detailed enough to give one confidence in the numbers they are reporting.

http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat7466536.pdf

It appears that they have actually made this device and it is working at the levels advertised. They may even have the manufacturing process settled down enough to make a bunch and to expect some reliability. It appears robust enough to handle vibration easily.

Folks have been responding to the claim that there are over 30,000 parts, but this sounds more like 30,000 micron sized barium titanite particles. Silk screening layers of such, multiple times, is hardly onerous.

This clearly describes what one would expect as the manufacturing system. It all depends totally on the capacity of each particle to absorb and to also discharge energy. Everyone wants to see that demonstration. It the protocol works, this patent convinces me that they can deliver sooner or later. After this we will see incremental improvements that moderately improve the system over the years likely by decreasing the size of the particle and sharply increasing the particle density. Yes, it can get better.

Take your time to read the patent and I don’t mean just the abstract. There is a lot of useful detail laid out in the description of the manufacturing process. I scanned the initial summary on the history of battery development but you may find it useful.

The energy separation caused by the use of coated particles makes this device safe so long as discharge is as easily controlled. One would hate to find a molten electric wheel in your parked car.

If this technology comes through, and from reading the patent and simply accepting the work clearly indicated, it has come through, then we have a real practical and compact energy storage device to work with from now on that clearly facilitates the electric car.

Breaking up Financial Behemoths

I am seeing a rising future consensus opinion on the need to force an end to gigantism in the corporate world. It is stated very simply. If it is too big to fail, then it is too big and must enter upon a planned dismemberment. There needs to be legislation and a court ordered process. Trust busting legislation shows the way quite well and we have had the recent example of AT&T to inspect.

GM is the obvious current example that certainly calls for this type of treatment, and while we are at it, it needs to be applied to a couple of the other global manufacturing behemoths.

More importantly the financial behemoths that are all been bailed out need the same treatment. Does anyone think that AIG and Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac and their ilk actually successfully managed their capital exposure? The truth is that they all jumped onto a race to the bottom that was incentivized with bonuses and they could not get off or correct it and maintain their illusionary profit performance. There was obviously no way to correct it without getting fired.

They have all been smashed and it is now an excellent time to spin out the successful sub units that can still stand alone. And perhaps we can return to the good old days in which cross investment was banned. It never made sense ever to have brokers be in the same office as a lender. The conflict is always fatal and the incentive to grab is overpowering.

There is also always a lawyer to package any scheme.

Who will not borrow money in the hopes that sometime later he can liquidate it all and walk away rich. A banker has to know better than that.

Today our primary source of available leverage, the housing market, is completely under water. It is a good bet that no one who acquired real estate in the past ten years is able to liquidate and is trapped with paying off the property in the hopes of seeing daylight.

I think that one of the best stimulus methods that could be applied to the US economy and the global economy is to order a breakup of all the obvious behemoths, as soon as possible. A ten fold increase in banking competition will revitalize the lending market for the newly emergent independent manufacturers.

The so called efficiencies of management redundancies have turned into a mirage. The errors incurred have destroyed the entire capital base of the financial industry and many others besides. GMAC has great business if it can get money to lend on good terms. A little more difficult when the several biggest lenders have shrunk hugely. A little easier if supported by an army of small lenders and operated as several smaller GMACs.

One way to promote corporate breakup is to create a credit formula that actually penalizes dangerous sizing. That would remove the strongest incentive pushing corporate gigantism. The events of the past quarter would actually support such a formula by the credit rating agencies. I am stilled startled to wake up and realize that triple A firms abruptly failed. It should never happen.

Handy Post on GW

I share this post from another blogger as it has a really nice to read list prepared by one of his correspondents.

The illustration is also cute.

The items in the list are surprisingly complete in spelling out the various arguments.

This is a handy tool when reading another propaganda piece that is playing fast and loose with the evidence.

A Reader Shares His Doubts About Global Warming

Written by Timothy B. Hurst

Published on December 15th, 2008

Posted in Climate Change, Conservative, Leader

http://redgreenandblue.org/files/2008/12/global_warming_evidence.jpg


Last week, I received an email from a reader in Estonia (I was just as surprised we were big in the Baltics as you) who indicated that he used to be a believer in the global warming phenomenon until he “read some quite believable articles suggesting that man made Global Warming is a hoax.” Two of the pieces the reader pointed me to were authored by Robert Brisnmead, who, evidently, is a devoted climate change denier. The third was a longer, more detailed piece.

The reader also passed along a summary of the take-home arguments he gleaned in his newfound readings that I thought I would share with you. I’m only passing these along because the reader seemed like a friendly chap, not because I buy it. Do with it as you please.

1. The “Greenhouse Effect” is a natural and valuable phenomenon, without which, the planet would be uninhabitable.

2. Modest Global Warming, at least up until 1998 when a cooling trend began, has been real.

3. CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas; 95% of the contribution is due to Water Vapor.

4. Man’s contribution to Greenhouse Gasses is relatively insignificant. We didn’t cause the recent Global Warming and we cannot stop it.

5. Solar Activity appears to be the principal driver for Climate Change, accompanied by complex ocean currents which distribute the heat and control local weather systems.

6. CO2 is a useful trace gas in the atmosphere, and the planet would actually benefit by having more, not less of it, because it is not a driver for Global Warming and would enrich our vegetation, yielding better crops to feed the expanding population.

7. CO2 is not causing global warming, in fact, CO2 is lagging temperature change in all reliable datasets. The cart is not pulling the donkey, and the future cannot influence the past.

8. Nothing happening in the climate today is particularly unusual, and in fact has happened many times in the past and will likely happen again in the future.

9. The UN IPCC has corrupted the “reporting process” so badly, it makes the oil-for-food scandal look like someone stole some kid’s lunch money. They do not follow the Scientific Method, and modify the science as needed to fit their predetermined conclusions. In empirical science, one does NOT write the conclusion first, then solicit “opinion” on the report, ignoring any opinion which does not fit their predetermined conclusion while falsifying data to support unrealistic models.

10. Polar Bear populations are not endangered, in fact current populations are healthy and at almost historic highs. The push to list them as endangered is an effort to gain political control of their habitat… particularly the North Slope oil fields.

11. There is no demonstrated causal relationship between hurricanes and/or tornadoes and global warming. This is sheer conjecture totally unsupported by any material science.

12. Observed glacial retreats in certain select areas have been going on for hundreds of years, and show no serious correlation to short-term swings in global temperatures.

13. Greenland is shown to be an island completely surrounded by water, not ice, in maps dating to the 14th century. There is active geothermal activity in the currently “melting” sections of Greenland.

14. The Antarctic Ice cover is currently the largest ever observed by satellite, and periodic ice shelf breakups are normal and correlate well with localized tectonic and geothermal activity along the Antarctic Peninsula.

15. The Global Warming Panic was triggered by an artifact of poor mathematics which has been thoroughly disproved. The panic is being deliberately nurtured by those who stand to gain both financially and politically from perpetuation of the hoax.

16. Scientists who “deny” the hoax are often threatened with loss of funding or even their jobs.

17. The correlation between solar activity and climate is now so strong that solar physicists are now seriously discussing the much greater danger of pending global cooling.

18. Biofuel hysteria is already having a disastrous effect on world food supplies and prices, and current technologies for biofuel production consume more energy than the fuels produce.

19. Global Warming Hysteria is potentially linked to a stress-induced mental disorder.

20. In short, there is no “climate crisis” of any kind at work on our planet.

Image: re-ality via flickr under a Creative Commons License

Tags: climate change, climate science, global warming, global warming is a hoax

Seth Borensen attracts Derision

This is only one of several articles pounding Seth Borenstein on his recent article drumming global warming. He obviously had not noticed that the winds are now blowing the other way, nor sensed that a number of science writers were obviously looking for an excuse to unload.

As far as new information is concerned, there is nothing here that has not been well covered before on this blog, if not over covered.

What is interesting is the newly found courage of the scientific community to yell rubbish when it has been so consistently dished out by the pro warming crowd.

It is now a full year since Mother Nature ended the very warm 2007 summer with a very cold winter in a complete reversal of the preceding pattern. That led me to immediately reevaluate assumptions and to focus on the movement of heat which presaged the sudden cooling.

It is very much as if the heat buildup caused by a decade of solar stimulation was simply discharged into the Arctic sending us right back to where we started. This winter is confirming this new trend and may see a further drop in global temperatures before solar stimulation begins again.

Because the northern ice age will never appear again, the climate is operating in the Holocene with a temperature variation spread of perhaps two degrees. Right now we are back to the middle of this range.

The question is what it takes to drop that extra degree. It may in fact be a protracted solar minimum as happened during the little ice age.

A major volcanic event can also do it for a year or so unless it is a very big event in the right position like Hekla in 1159 BCE.

Right now folks, the proponents of solar variation are winning the argument hands down, while the proponents of CO2 as a causative agent are looking foolish. You can be quite sure that during the time in which global temperatures stayed flat and then tumbled, that the human CO2 contribution to the atmosphere likely doubled (or so close that it does not matter). The fact is that Kyoto accomplished very little except to expose the honest guys to ridicule.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/12/15/scientists-denounce-ap-hysterical-global-warming-article

Scientists Denounce AP For Hysterical Global Warming Article

By Noel Sheppard

December 15, 2008 - 10:50 ET

Scientists from around the world are denouncing an Associated Press article hysterically claiming that global warming is "a ticking time bomb" about to explode, and that we're "running out of time" to do anything about it.

As reported by NewsBusters, Seth Borenstein, the AP's "national science writer," published a piece Sunday entitled "Obama Left With Little Time to Curb Global Warming."

Scientists from all over the world have responded to share their view of this alarmist propaganda:

How can this guy call himself a "science reporter?"

He is perhaps the worst propagandist in all the media, and that's stating something.

In his latest screed, he screams: "global warming is accelerating"

How then does he explain the fact that the mean global temperature (as measured by satellite) is the same as it was in 1980?

How can global warming be "accelerating" when the last two years have seen dramatic cooling? Is this guy totally removed from all reality?????

He completely ignores any evidence contrary to his personal beliefs, and twists everything to meet his preconceived notions.

How can anyone so ignorant be a reporter for AP? Seriously? -- David Deming, University of Oklahoma

“Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating.”

Rubbish! Global warming is not “accelerating”: global warming has stopped. There has been no statistically significant rise in (mean global temperature: MGT) since 1995 and MGT has fallen since 1998.

The Earth has been warming from the Little Ice Age (LIA) for 300 years so, of course, the warmest years happened recently. But that warming from the LIA peaked in the El Nino year of 1998. MGT has been near but below that peak for the last 10 years.

Arctic ice advances and recedes over decades. 2007 saw a minimum in Arctic ice cover in the short period that it has been monitored using satellites. But 2008 saw the most rapid growth in Arctic ice cover in that same period and Arctic ice cover is now back to the average it has had in the period. Also, 95% of polar ice is in the Antarctic and Antarctic ice is increasing.

Nobody can know if the recent halt to global warming is temporary, permanent or the start of a new warming or cooling phase. But it is certain that anybody who proclaims that “Global warming is accelerating” is a liar, a fool, or both. -- Richard S. Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant.

The Great Global Warming Hoax appears to be a collaborative effort between the world’s [sic] incompetent scientists and the worlds [sic] scientifically illiterate journalists. Science Illiterates like Borenstein are the Chicken Littles of the 21st Century, spreading climate change poppycock like bread crumbs in the forest. The crumbs, hopefully, will lead them to a paycheck at the end of the week from their similarly science-illiterate employers. Well, the lower-I.Q. portion of the population has to eat, too....<> -- James A. Peden, atmospheric physicist formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

Borenstein, time is definitely running out – for you to save any possible credibility unless you find a new drama to act out on the public because your current one is going down the drain faster than a so-so sitcom in September.

The world hasn’t “warmed” in a dozen years and over the past year not even Jim Hansen and His Magic Bag of Tricks can make it appear we’re all getting “warmer”.

Once the Public gets wind of the true data that shows their intuition has been right all along – not even the tabloids will pick you up for an occasional column to entertain them. -- Chemical Scientist Dr. Brian G. Valentine of the U.S. Department of Energy and Professor at University of Maryland, has studied computational fluid dynamics and modeling of complex systems

"Hottest on record" means little for a 5 billion yr old planet, when the 'record" is only 100 years or less. Please avoid parsing the data, to support you [sic] indefensible conclusions and to ignored [sic] the data which don't support your conclusions. Selecting data for a desired outcome is as old as drying labbing [sic] chemistry labs. This seems to be SOP for today as environmental journalists and just as silly (and detectable---you are outta my chem. class). Your hypothesis is easily falsified, and has been falsified.

Lots of Temp stations show cooling for decades while CO2 rises, ergo falsified. Ergo there are more powerful unspecified climate forces involved. CO2 is likely uninvolved or if so a minor player. Next problem please. -- Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is a retired nuclear scientist and university chemistry professor.

He is the science and energy writer/reporter for the HawaiiReport.com

One of the biggest problems in all this is that the major media are so busy bashing President Bush for any and every thing that they have lost sight of what he realized 5+ years ago: none of the CO2-related strategies will work unless China and India join the community. Bush's initiative to form an "Asia-Pacific" consortium of nations was the very first realistic step in the direction of a coherent approach to climate-change mitigation.

What is going on currently is that A) India has dismissed the whole thing, saying "we will never be higher in "per capita" energy use than the western countries; B) the Europeans have figured out that it will cost them big bucks and are fleeing from their Kyoto promises; C) the bandwagon in the USA is still going forward in high gear, and in about a year they'll realize they're way out in front with no followers. -- Dr. Thomas P. Sheahen, an MIT educated physicist, author of the book "An Introduction to High-Temperature Superconductivity," and writer of the popular newspaper column "Ask the Everyday Scientist"

One further critical aspect of global warming alarmists that is so fiercely debated by all is the "climate forcing" property of carbon dioxide. Allow me to state categorically that, despite any and all arguments to the contrary, including the most elaborately well-balanced mathematical formulae by the best mathematicians in the world, the climate forcing ability of carbon dioxide equals exactly zero. Not 4 degrees C, not 1 degree C, not even 0.0001 degree C. Just plain zero. Even the much heralded graphic indicating that the first 20ppmv of carbon dioxide makes a difference to the air temperature that is much greater than any subsequent increase in concentration is a useless bit of info based on laboratory tests that have absolutely no relation to the open atmosphere. There exists not one single laboratory test on climate that can be extrapolated to mimic the open atmosphere and that includes the most advanced computers that in any case treat the earth as a flat disc with a 24 hour haze of solar radiation - about as far removed from reality as is possible. -- Hans Schreuder, Ph.D. Mathematical Statistician, Rocky Mountain Research Station

In responce to what is happening to global temperatures. The key is using the right statistical technique to plot the "average" temperature. I do not have the qualifications to establish what the correct technique is. I just understand such things as non-linear least square regression analysis. There are five organizations which report global temperature anomalies on a monthly basis. If you use simple non-linear analysis, and include 2008 data, then all five data sets show that world temperatures seem to have passed through a shallow maximum. My guess is that when we can look back with 20/20 hindsight, we will be able to see that this maximum occurred around 2005. So it is understandable that recent years are amongst the warmest on record. This fact is no argument that temperatures are still rising. What counts is the slope of the average temperature/time graph at the present time. For a couple of years, this slope has been negative; global temperatures have been falling. We do not know, of course, if this will continue. But so far as I can see, none of the IPCC and other pro-AGW organizations predicted falling temperatures. However, before you attempt to use an argument like this, you need someone who really knows statistical analysis techniques. -- Physicist F. James Cripwell, a former scientist with UK’s Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge who worked under the leading expert in infra red spectroscopy -- Sir Gordon Sutherland – and worked with the Operations Research for the Canadian Defense Research Board

What does it take to ignore 10 years of global cooling, sharply declining temperatures the last couple of years, record setting lack of sun spots, flipping of the PDO into its cool mode, failure of computer models to predict real climate, predictable warming and cooling climates for the past 500 years, and ................
The answer is really quite simple--just follow the money! -- Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University, U.S.

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.