BookTalk.org

It is a bit "polarised" article and maybe a bit too firm on some statements... but some kings who have not been wearing any clothes for a while are stated in neat order
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21 ... engineers/

I noticed after reading this article, that they didn’t mention methane digesters.
Since methane gas has 20 times the potential than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, we must capture this gas instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. One way this is being done today is by dairy farms trapping methane from cow manure and producing electricity.
Let me give a basic explanation of how they collect methane gas from cow manure. They collect and move the manure to a large lagoon. Most of the methanogenic bacteria are present in the manure. However, they can add more of these bacteria to speed up the anaerobic digestion of this organic waste. For the anaerobic process to occur, they must cover the lagoon with a nonporous cover. This biological process occurs in what is referred to as a methane digester. This captured methane gas is purified and is equivalent to natural gas which can be used to fire up electrical generators and produce all the electricity needed for the dairy farm. Any excess electricity is sold to the local power company.
Also, this same technology is being used at landfills for capturing methane gas from garbage and producing electricity for power companies.
In the thriller novel, Green Power, this is exactly what the protagonist does on dairy farms. However, when an epidemic breaks out pointing to the methane digesters as the cause, the safety of this alternate source of energy is questioned.
For more information, please visit the author’s website: http://vrooman.webs.com

Renewable energy cannot reduce CO2 sufficiently and we have no alternatives. This seems to be excellent information. We can just relax and accept the doom of our descendants on their behalf.

Probably one of the main problems is how politics and other "agendas" got in the way of science. There is a chap working for NASA, I wish I could find his calculations he showed in a BBC documentary - he works out that, for example, how many square miles of wind farms *per week* are needed to be put in service in order to compensate for the increasing emissions. This was calculated with the individual co2 average footprints of a "western" individual, the time it takes to break even (e.g. co2 footprint of making the turbine vs. its effect) etc.
The numbers looked... hilarious, if one has that dark sense of humour. Of course it was all based on existing figures that, including the climate model, may be wrong - but it is interesting to see the cold light of reason applied to hype and demagogy.

Not sure if we have doom coming, many of the models and their predictions were proven wrong, and many have been adapted/changed based on constantly discovered new data... but it is interesting to see how some can step outside the rhetoric bubble, so there is hope I think, without any specific political views against or for the likes of him, the doom comes when Gore-like characters get their way...although he has been "saving the planet" for ages...

Apologies for bringing in George Carlin's satyrical take, but in a very abstract and rational sense he was right: the planet will just integrate co2, plastics, radioactive waste into a new paradigm ("planet + plastic" etc.) and move on into a next phase. Latter may not be very good for some species but c'est la vie ...