We will never be able to reduce let alone stop emitting greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere because there is just too much money involved. Who is going to pay for the transition from fossil fuels to solar or nuclear? Will the huge oil industry allow for it? Unfortunately, everything revolves around money.
Some more sobering news
- Thread starter prattreef
- Start date
Anyone else watch the special on discovery channel that showed they have developed new power plant for i think it was coal. And what it will do is trap and collect the carbon that is being released. But then they need to stop all this carbon. And they are try now to experment with filling the mountains in carbon valley Utah with the carbon. But all i should think of is one day what if it all ruptured and all this stored carbon exploded into the atmosphere.
life after people
I saw that documentary on the discovery channel "life after people", a must see if it is repeated. I totally agree about the climate change on the planet but mankind will destroy earth by nuclear weapons before we destroy it by CO2. The problem is mankinds quest for Power/Money will destroy this planet & only something catastrophic might bring everyone together to save this planet.
I saw that documentary on the discovery channel "life after people", a must see if it is repeated. I totally agree about the climate change on the planet but mankind will destroy earth by nuclear weapons before we destroy it by CO2. The problem is mankinds quest for Power/Money will destroy this planet & only something catastrophic might bring everyone together to save this planet.
Here is some more as copied from the Brooklyn Aquarium Society website.
Killerdrgn
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- Park Ridge, NJ
The problem with clean coal, which is what you're referring to BTW, is still at least 10-20 years down the line for R&D. What the coal industry is proposing is to make the coal plants now so when the technology is available they will be able to retrofit the plants. However, the biggest problem with this is that a lot could happen in 10-20 years. Something like the R&D is underfunded and never comes out, but we're still on the line for the dirty coal plants. Instead of creating more coal plants we could build more solar power factories to make more solar panels, thus creating economies of scale and bringing down the cost of solar power. This is available RIGHT NOW! the only issue is funding. 100 sq miles of solar panels makes enough power for the entire US.
Can you point to the actual read...seems far fetched.
Killerdrgn
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- Park Ridge, NJ
Here, Only reason it's not really going to happen is because 100 sq miles of solar panels is crazy expensive currently. Imagine a 10 mile by 10 mile grid of solar panels.
Theoretically, Stirling dish farms with a total area of 100 miles square could replace all the fossil fuels now burned to generate electricity in the entire U.S. What happens in the California desert over the next few years could determine whether thermal solar power can help end the dominance of fossil fuelsTheoretically, Stirling dish farms with a total area of 100 miles square could replace all the fossil fuels now burned to generate electricity in the entire U.S. What happens in the California desert over the next few years could determine whether thermal solar power can help end the dominance of fossil fuels
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_37/b3950067_mz018.htm
Nowhere in that article does it say anything about 100 Square miles of solar panels. The article talks about mirrors and sterling engines and that is never going to be enought for the whole of us.
Currently the biggest solar farms either in existance or currrently in planning stages can generate abot 300MW (Peak) power per 3200 acres (~5 square miles). If you take into account that an average US household only uses 2KW (average not peak as that could be around say 6-8 KW) that installation can only supply enough electricity to 150,000 house holds. A 100 square miles at current efficiency levels would logically produce around 6000KW, enough to provide 3,000,000 average households. A 100 sq miles farm will produce far less than what we need in the US, not to mention that there is a peak draw which is much higher than average, there are also commercial and industrial accounts with tremendous draw and all the lights you see on the street. The fact that these lights come on at night when the SUN is down doesn't really help either. Solar power is great but unless you see all roofs made out of it, it won't have the big impact everyone is yelling about. At current prices, I don't see any changes coming in the near future.
Killerdrgn
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- Location
- Park Ridge, NJ
Dude! I put the quote from the article! It's right at the end of the page. Copy the first couple of words and do a search on the page and you'll see it. I'm sure anything of 100 sq miles would be enough to power the entire US. You do realize how big 100 sq miles really is right?
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From one dude to another...
I understand you quoted to the best of your abilities. However, the article talks about 100 square miles of stirling dish farms (NOT SOLAR PANELS!!!) which "theoreticaly" have a potential of replacing all of the fossis fuel burned to generate electricity in the entire US.
Again, theoreticaly, you are wrong twice in your short statement which I quote here "100 sq miles of solar panels makes enough power for the entire US.".
1. It is not solar panels
2. It will not provide enough electricity for the entire of US.
As to 100 Sq miles area, I do realize how SMALL the area actually is hence my original question.
P.S. Electricity in the form as is delivered to you comes from more than one source. Very small slice of the pie comes from fossil fuel burning facilities.
Here is a website showing nuke plants and the power they generate, try replacing those numbers and you'll quickly see that they are here to stay.
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist1.htm#NY
- Location
- Upper East Side
Coral first evolved in the Cambrian as part of the Cambrian explosion. This period starts somewhere around 550 million years ago, although the corals we see now are obviously descendants of those that first evolved. The first corals were soft bodied - story corals evolved later. Acropora doesn't appear in the fossil record until approx 65Ma, right around the time we say goodbye to dinosaurs.
As far as CO2 levels in the oceans, I have two comments:
(1) once we start getting multicellular life on earth, the atmosphere is pretty stable. Sure it fluctuates, but we wouldn't see some of the most extreme atmospheric phenomena that were presumably present during Earth's very early, single-cell life form history. CO2 levels were certainly higher than they are now up until about 65Ma when there is a huge global climate change.
(2) you have to remember that what we see today has evolved fairly recently, when we think about the geologic time scale. When corals evolved, those original corals would have been adapted to that ocean environment. As ocean environments change, corals would change to compensate. So just because corals in the past might be been able to withstand particular conditions, we can't say corals in the present could do the same thing. They have gone too far down a specific evolutionary trajectory.
Corals reefs have also expanded and contracted as global temperature has changed over the millenia. At times, corals reefs were far more widespread than they are today. They have contracted as the earth has cooled. For instance, there were typical Acropora-style reefs as far north as the Mediterranean Sea up until the mid-Miocene (approx. 25Ma).
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Must be a Michael Crichton fan. I think he was the first to popularize this idea in one of is books. One of my favorite authors. Now theyre even talking about a serious attempt at Jurassic Park but with a wooly mammoth ( the four legged kind, not some of our members ).
Killerdrgn
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- Park Ridge, NJ
Ok fine you want to play this game, COAL is the major source of power in the US right now at above 50%. I don't think this is a very small slice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States
Then there?s natural gas power plants and oil plants.
Nuclear power is only 20% or less of the source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States
Sterling dishes are still a form of solar power, fine I concede i misquoted solar panels for solar dishes. The article still stands though.
- Location
- Upper East Side
Okay guys, lets keep this civil. It's fine if you want to keep debating the issue as long as it doesn't go further into personal attacks. Don't make me close a thread about reef conservation. 
I'm in. :duh: Lets crunch the numbers here.
Look at this quote from the article you've posted "Osborn says that a dish farm of 11 miles square could produce as much electricity as the 2,050 MW from Hoover Dam. "We're already looking at a half-dozen one-square-mile sites in the California desert," he says, "and there's lots and lots more territory there."
"Theoretically, Stirling dish farms with a total area of 100 miles square could replace all the fossil fuels now burned to generate electricity in the entire U.S"
Assuming the article was correctly written some quick research indicates that there is a huge difference between square miles and miles square.
So, in theory (only in theory and only during sunny days, vs actual numbers posted for nuke plants) 11 miles square (121 Square Miles) could generate as much as 2050 MW, which then translates to about 168,000 MW for 100 miles square (which BTW is 100 miles x 100 miles = 10,000 square miles). That is only about 60,000 MW adjusted for the fact that it is generated on average only 8 hrs a day.
In contrast all nuke plants currently operating in US (which again according to your source is only supplying 20% of electricity) can produce over 100,000 MW (24hrs per day vs probably 8hrs on average).
So this is what I have established from the numbers..
100 miles square full of stirling engines cannot replace even the power generated by nuke plants. Since you stated that fossil fuel burning power plants generate up to 2.5 times (20% vs 50%) of electricity of Nuclear power plants the problem is actually compounded.
Numbers don't lie my friend, do your math.
- PING (the ball is in your court)
Oh, and I am not attacking anybody, just trying to pick my own brain with new information. As to the reef conservation....well, I though about it today and reefkeepers don't contribute to conservation at all. The positive impact that reef education has is extremely small comparing to the damage we crate on many levels.
First there is the overcollection. Very few fish are captive bread. (corals are doing slightly better) I don't have the actual number but is probably 1 to 1000 or worse. The problem is then compounded by poor collection techniques, fish dying en route to sellers and fish dying in the hobbyists tank. Very few if anybody could say that "I bought only 10 fish in the past 5 years and they are all still alive today". They are constantly replaced, more so with beginners than with advance aquarists.
Then there is the issue of energy waste this hobby produces. We take corals out of their natural habitat with natural sun only to put 500-1000W worth of lights over the tank to keep it going. The heaters/chillers and pumps/powerheads to keep the water moving around the corals adds to the electricity usage considerably. "Gazzillions" of KWh are wasted among the aquarists so obviously this only adds to pollution.
Then you've got the pollution from transport. Again, "gazzillion" of gallons of diesel are burned to deliver the fish, corals, equipment, salt etc to you.
The water wasted with RO, I won't even mention here.
Am I guilty of some or all of the above. YES I am, I admit.
First there is the overcollection. Very few fish are captive bread. (corals are doing slightly better) I don't have the actual number but is probably 1 to 1000 or worse. The problem is then compounded by poor collection techniques, fish dying en route to sellers and fish dying in the hobbyists tank. Very few if anybody could say that "I bought only 10 fish in the past 5 years and they are all still alive today". They are constantly replaced, more so with beginners than with advance aquarists.
Then there is the issue of energy waste this hobby produces. We take corals out of their natural habitat with natural sun only to put 500-1000W worth of lights over the tank to keep it going. The heaters/chillers and pumps/powerheads to keep the water moving around the corals adds to the electricity usage considerably. "Gazzillions" of KWh are wasted among the aquarists so obviously this only adds to pollution.
Then you've got the pollution from transport. Again, "gazzillion" of gallons of diesel are burned to deliver the fish, corals, equipment, salt etc to you.
The water wasted with RO, I won't even mention here.
Am I guilty of some or all of the above. YES I am, I admit.
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- Location
- Upper East Side
This is a huge oversimplification. In regards to fish - the aquarium trade is responsible for a tiny fraction of the life that is removed from the ocean each year. Food fisherman and commercial fisheries move tons more fish than the aquarium trade. Ornamental fish collecting plays a valuable economic role in impoverished communities in the third world. Personally, if a person can earn a living collecting fish responsibly, I prefer they do that than any number of the other destructive activities they could engage in (i.e. slash and burn agriculture). Studies have shown that fish are a renewable resource. Fish spawn often and a lot. As long as the reefs are there, the fish will be there. The bigger problem is the destruction of the habitat. So the trick is less about captive breeding and more about responsible collecting. If you had been at the swap, you would have seen Kevin's talk about the strides that Quality Marine is taking in educating and providing materials for responsible collection. There are also sustainable collection projects going on in Mexico, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. MAC is also responsible for studies and education about proper collection of fish.
Corals are doing more than slightly better. There are mariculture facilities in Indonesia and the Solomon Islands at the very least - there are probably more I haven't heard of. Frag farming is big business and all of the designer corals are farmed. Most large retailers (i.e. Fosters and Smith) have their own farming facilities. ORA is huge retailer of farmed corals.
Is there still irresponsible collecting going on? Certainly. There are still collectors that use cyanide. People are still blowing up parts of the reefs in order to make "aquacultured" live rock. There are still people hacking up large colonies of coral for trade. But we are making big strides in the right direction and there are a lot more shades of gray than just, "we should be tank raising all of our fish and corals."
- Location
- Copiague, NY
it's very sad and way past the point of reversing the effects of what the industrial revolution did to Mother Earth...we are now seeing first hand the affects of polution and gas emmisons on our planet, it's a wonder we haven't just destroyed the planet completley
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