TMLutas wrote:You, my friend, need to take a look at Tesla Motors that's currently producing a 248HP 2 seat monster. The trick is that you can only drive it for 250 miles, not the normal 300 you'd get on a full gas tank and charging's slower than a fill up. A few years and they'll be out with something that can fit 8 and it'll be nice and zippy.
Base price: $92,000.
Well, yeah, you don't think you bootstrap a car company with econoboxes, do you? You give the rich their toys and next year drop the price by a few thousand and sell more to the almost rich. A decade later you've got your electric car econoboxes and a nice stock listing on the NYSE.
Do you really want to have the experimental years carried out on the back of commuters who are barely making ends meet or on the backs of the green rich who can afford to put in an extra $10k of improvements on the basic model on a whim?
This whole thing whiffs pretty funny, if you ask me. He's got a 'torque-measurement device' on the thing, but he hasn't actually put it under a proper load.
He presents the numbers in different units, and has not given an analysis of the device's power factor (inefficiency due to desynchronization of current and voltage in the electromagnet). My gut feeling is that if this is even close to real, the pf is causing internal heating and energy loss in excess of the apparent excess.
My real gut feeling is that this whole thing is just another perpetual-motion scam.
TMLutas wrote:Well, yeah, you don't think you bootstrap a car company with econoboxes, do you? You give the rich their toys and next year drop the price by a few thousand and sell more to the almost rich. A decade later you've got your electric car econoboxes and a nice stock listing on the NYSE.
Do you really want to have the experimental years carried out on the back of commuters who are barely making ends meet or on the backs of the green rich who can afford to put in an extra $10k of improvements on the basic model on a whim?
Actually, you just paraphrased a long-dead distant relative of mine who happened to be horribly, horribly wrong...Alexander Malcomson.
Of the "Malcomson and Ford Motor Company".
There's a reason it's just "Ford" nowadays...because my deceased relative constantly pushed to create and sell limited runs of cars for the rich, using exactly your opinion, that only the rich could afford these experimental toys. His lines preceded the famous "Model T" that truly launched the company --- by selling bare-bones-yet-functional cars to the masses, using payment coupon plans so that anyone who could tuck just a little away at a time could eventually save up and buy one.
Malcomson and Ford split up over this basic difference in ideology, and history changed because of it.
TMLutas wrote:Well, yeah, you don't think you bootstrap a car company with econoboxes, do you? You give the rich their toys and next year drop the price by a few thousand and sell more to the almost rich. A decade later you've got your electric car econoboxes and a nice stock listing on the NYSE.
Do you really want to have the experimental years carried out on the back of commuters who are barely making ends meet or on the backs of the green rich who can afford to put in an extra $10k of improvements on the basic model on a whim?
Actually, you just paraphrased a long-dead distant relative of mine who happened to be horribly, horribly wrong...Alexander Malcomson.
Of the "Malcomson and Ford Motor Company".
There's a reason it's just "Ford" nowadays...because my deceased relative constantly pushed to create and sell limited runs of cars for the rich, using exactly your opinion, that only the rich could afford these experimental toys. His lines preceded the famous "Model T" that truly launched the company --- by selling bare-bones-yet-functional cars to the masses, using payment coupon plans so that anyone who could tuck just a little away at a time could eventually save up and buy one.
Malcomson and Ford split up over this basic difference in ideology, and history changed because of it.
There's one big difference. The technology to make the world's first econobox was just around the corner. Ford figured it out. The moment that Tesla figures it out, it'll go big very fast. But nobody knows how to do it yet and the projections on battery improvements mean that we're likely not to be there yet for the better part of a decade until super capacitors come out in sizes and capabilities sufficient to power a car.
I didn't start out to be a Tesla Motors fanboi but they're the only people out there coming at the problem from this angle and it not only sells, its sexy.
I've been looking at the 'over unity' motor, and frankly, it just sprains my brain...
He mentions a 'magnetic lockup point' in the gap, and that he overcomes it by using an electromagnet...
Except...
There's a WHOLE LOT of those points.
When a magnet on a rotor nears a static magnet, it will be pulled towards it, yes, that is all and well...
But when it passes, that same magnet will still be pulling. DC, Stepper and whatever else of electric motors all overcome this by switching off the magnets,(or even reversing them) but that is not possible here.
'But the next magnet is closer to the center than the previous one and will excert a stronger force'...
Yes, but in return it will also excert a stronger holding force, too...
'The spiral placement will offset the force and keep it spinning'
No...
That will just make it wobble and eventually destroy its bearings.
I won't believe that it works until it has been tested and demonstrated to work by scientists NOT paid by the inventor. (Peer review, anyone?)
Windmills and birds...
We have a few windmills here in Norway, and most of those are off the coast to take advantage of the strong winds in the North Atlantic.
These windmills kills seagulls and eagles. Possibly also other birds that fish for food.
(I believe the Danes have similar experiences with their much larger windmill farms)
Oil and gas. This won't last forever. not even 50 years with the current usage.
Coal?
Yes, there are enormous fields that has still to be mined.
Unfortunately, the largest I know of is in the North Atlantic(we are talking about 2.000.000.000.000 TONS. An earlier estimate by BP is that there are about 900.000.000.000 Tons of workable coal deposits in the world)
Anyone for borrowing a scuba suit and a shovel?
Solar power.
This is an interesting technology, and there are things on the way that might lower the production-cost of new panels with as much as 20%, but you still have to contend with the fact that such panels have a usable lifetime of about 30 years. (Someone is working on setting up a factory which uses a new process for the layer in the panels)
But the real problem is that it is heavily dependant on good weather and perfect alignment.
Just a few degrees off and power output falls abruptly.
Alternative solar systems, like mirrors focusing the sunlight onto a tank filled with some sort of liquid is also possible, but I haven't studied those in too great detail. (Isn't there one of those outside Los Angeles?)
It does have the drawback of taking up a lot of land, but that can be dealt with but using southfacing hill/mountainsides, or areas that has little or no value for farming.
There's also the problem of breakages...
(one hailstorm can destroy such a facility in minutes unless the panels can be protected somehow)
Space-based solar collectors...
Yeah, right.
We won't have the technology to make that commercially viable for a long while, yet, which is handy as we also need to find the best way to transfer the energy to the Earth withour irradiating a big chunk of land...
Fusion?
yes, please.
From what I've read on Fusor.net there's a few fusion reactors running in basements, already. Unfortunately, though, none of them produces more energy than they draw, which means we may have to hope for the ITER project to work, in which case we may have to wait another 60 - 80 years before we have any reactors on the grid.
Until then, all we can do is to use as little energy as possible.
Scrap the old F-series, ban the Hummer H2 from use and start using economic cars...
In the homes we can (in addition to the rooftop solar panel) use heat-exchange pumps.
(they give a 4 to 1 back in heat from the electricity you pump into them.)
My name is Lion, Anthony Lion.
A fur with a license to purr
All I can say about the machine is that it violates conservation of energy.
Therefore, it does not work as advertised. If it appears to, then it is only because the inventor has been very clever about hiding the losses. (Either deliberately, or unintentionally.)
Energy doesn't just spring out of nowhere. It has to come from somewhere. That's been proven time and time again.
Okay, three points, since no one else has covered 'em:
1. Global warming will not do us in because it's a lie. A scam, a falsehood, a load of bullsh*t. It may be happening, but there is no proof that we are causing it or can fix it. Or that we should given that the last warming period resulted in bumper crops for Europe. Not a bad trade-off for less snow, eh?
2. Don't make predictions about oil reserves, okay? The last people who did that ended up being wrong. The only way you can be right is to keep guessing and then, when we finally run out, say "Aha! I knew it would happen! You should've listened to me!" By then, no one will be listening as your prediction ratio will probably be a little less than 100% wrong.
3. Nuclear fusion is all well and good, but is that any reason to overlook nuclear fission? It's clean, it's economical, and it frees up resources that can be used elsewhere. Proper maintenance results in zero meltdowns (Anyone notice that Chernobyl was a Russian power plant? American plants have never had that problem.), and the radiation can be easily contained. Once the public gets over its fear of nuclear anything, we should be able to take advantage of this clean and powerful source of energy. Provided the idiots in congress don't block the construction. 'Course, I wouldn't be surprised, seeing as how they blocked drilling in Alaska, when even the Alaskan Democrats wanted it done!
There, I've had my say. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be in my flame-proof shelter over here.
*dashes off*
I'm lost. I've gone to find myself. If I should return before I get back, please ask me to wait. Thanks.
A working fusion reactor would be safer than fission, because it would only contain enough fuel for a few seconds of power rather than years. Break the reactor, the reaction poofs out after a minute or two.
It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. - attributed to Samuel Adams
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” - Richard Henry Lee
StrangeWulf13 wrote:
1. Global warming will not do us in because it's a lie. A scam, a falsehood, a load of bullsh*t. It may be happening, but there is no proof that we are causing it or can fix it. Or that we should given that the last warming period resulted in bumper crops for Europe. Not a bad trade-off for less snow, eh?
This is true, but only if you listen to a few hand picked "specialists". Funnily enough, they just happen to be all from the US, and there are naught to be seen anywhere else. (At least not in Good Ol' Europe...)
StrangeWulf13 wrote:
2. Don't make predictions about oil reserves, okay? The last people who did that ended up being wrong. The only way you can be right is to keep guessing and then, when we finally run out, say "Aha! I knew it would happen! You should've listened to me!" By then, no one will be listening as your prediction ratio will probably be a little less than 100% wrong.
Again, no one is at the moment trying to "guess" as you point it out. It is sufficient to know what the rise of demand currently is, and when oil discoveries peaked. The rest is a matter of "how much are you willing to pay for this black goo". I predict you will be able to buy a barrel of crude in 150 years time (well, not "you" as in "you personally", you might be dead by then), but i really dont want to know if the price is worth it by then.
Ah, but there's more than one way to get that black goo. If the prices climb over $100 per barrel, bioconversion and tar sands get economical. There's a -lot- of tar sands out there - more than all of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the middle east combined just in Canada. Why do you think the Saudis pump like mad to keep the price below $60 or so? If a $100 plus spike lasts a couple years, we'll build the plants. If we once get the plants set up, the government will prop them up if the price drops again, and the -operational- costs will be low enough that the middle east will lose its leverage - it'll be cheaper to subsidize the loans to keep the conversion plants running than to pay for Muslim oil.
The Saudis are smart enough to know that and are doing their best to keep it from happening. When they actually run out, the laws of economics will take over again.
StrangeWulf13 wrote:
1. Global warming will not do us in because it's a lie. A scam, a falsehood, a load of bullsh*t. It may be happening, but there is no proof that we are causing it or can fix it. Or that we should given that the last warming period resulted in bumper crops for Europe. Not a bad trade-off for less snow, eh?
This is true, but only if you listen to a few hand picked "specialists". Funnily enough, they just happen to be all from the US, and there are naught to be seen anywhere else. (At least not in Good Ol' Europe...)
Does the name Henk Tennekes ring a bell? It didn't to me until I googled Europe global warming skeptics and found his name along with Aksel Winn-Nielsen, Alfonso Sutera, and Antonio Speranza in this article talking about how such voices get silenced. After reading that article I don't much care for the scare quotes around the word specialists and I think that after reading the article you might understand why.
Scientism discredits science and enforcing conformity by nonscientfic means including ridiculing hard earned legitimate credentials. That's no way to advance the cause of scienc.e
I've told my environmentalist family about the many conservatives (at least, none of them sound liberal to me) who think that the Earth is warmer only because of natural solar cycles. They counter that the effects are still more extreme than in cycles past and human action is the only other major factor. They do not believe for a moment that scientists are being bullied into confirming global warming untruthfully -- under this administration, more likely the opposite.
Global warming will not finish us off, but it will affect us.
From decreased farming area, to extreme weather conditions (hurricanes anyone?), and i think everyone can guess where those two could lead to.
But that doesn't mean we should not try to lessen the amount of carbage we dump into the enviroment, if for no other reason that to try to keep ourself healthy.
Personally i am betting on a meteor to wipe us out of the picture, just one hit and we're done for, unless we have gotten out of here by then (not happening in next few decades at this rate).
I would also point out that Mother Nature has made far more drastic changes even in recent history, which have been particularly devastating. In 1815-16, a series of volcanic eruptions caused rivers and lakes as far south as Pennsylvania to be frozen in July and August. Ouch.
It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. - attributed to Samuel Adams
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” - Richard Henry Lee
Deckard Canine wrote:I've told my environmentalist family about the many conservatives (at least, none of them sound liberal to me) who think that the Earth is warmer only because of natural solar cycles. They counter that the effects are still more extreme than in cycles past and human action is the only other major factor. They do not believe for a moment that scientists are being bullied into confirming global warming untruthfully -- under this administration, more likely the opposite.
Lomborg was a european leftie that got converted by the data when he dug deep into environmentalism. He's not quite a full blown skeptic but he's skeptical that the current mantra of Kyoto, Kyoto, Kyoto is a good way of dealing with the problem.
The M&M debunking of MBH98 scared the life out of me when I figured out that for several years nobody checked the numbers on the central piece of evidence used to justify declaring now is the time to act. Irrespective of whether the M&M critique is correct, the numbers were in error due to a stupid mistake and a correction had to be issued on those grounds (among others). Nobody checking means what's going on is a circle jerk that may or may not be right. It's not science, except by accident. And people want to divert trillions of dollars and kill people because of those diversions based on numbers that nobodyc hecked between 1998 and 2002? That's bizarre and wrong.
J4N1 wrote:Global warming will not finish us off, but it will affect us.
From decreased farming area, to extreme weather conditions (hurricanes anyone?), and i think everyone can guess where those two could lead to.
But that doesn't mean we should not try to lessen the amount of carbage we dump into the enviroment, if for no other reason that to try to keep ourself healthy.
The really fun thing is that if global warming is correct, the reduced difference between polar and equatorial temps may actually make for easier hurricane seasons. From my link above, here's an MIT professor and expert
If the models are correct, global warming reduces the temperature differences between the poles and the equator. When you have less difference in temperature, you have less excitation of extratropical storms, not more. And, in fact, model runs support this conclusion. Alarmists have drawn some support for increased claims of tropical storminess from a casual claim by Sir John Houghton of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that a warmer world would have more evaporation, with latent heat providing more energy for disturbances. The problem with this is that the ability of evaporation to drive tropical storms relies not only on temperature but humidity as well, and calls for drier, less humid air. Claims for starkly higher temperatures are based upon there being more humidity, not less--hardly a case for more storminess with global warming.
When the models are ignored when they bring good news and only trotted out when they support bad news, that's not science.
Joel Achenbach noted that environmental questions tend not to have simple answers. Did global warming cause Hurricane Katrina? Yes and no, he says. Warming does not increase the frequency of hurricanes, but it does increase the intensity.
TMLutas wrote:And people want to divert trillions of dollars and kill people because of those diversions based on numbers that nobodyc hecked between 1998 and 2002?
I must have overlooked something -- when did killing people enter the equation? Are you referring to severe population control measures in the name of environmentalism?
TMLutas wrote:
Does the name Henk Tennekes ring a bell? It didn't to me until I googled Europe global warming skeptics and found his name along with Aksel Winn-Nielsen, Alfonso Sutera, and Antonio Speranza in this article talking about how such voices get silenced. After reading that article I don't much care for the scare quotes around the word specialists and I think that after reading the article you might understand why.
No, it didnt ring a bell to me. It seems its a good thing we dont just have 4 or 5 ish Scientists in Europe. After reading the articles (well, at least i tried... Reading a Science paper is hard enough if you read it in your mother language - reading it in a second or third language is a receipe of getting it wrong, I fear) I'm still not convinced that blaming EVERYTHING on the Earth axis shift (wich is a theory that also is quite accepted) and Thermogeological Catastrophes that _might_ happen and _might_ be worse than our digging up of fossiles and setting them free in the atmosphere is the way to go. To me, the "anti-alarmists" sound like people paid by the petro-industry. No honest, they practically advertise burning of fossiles (Global warming might counteract hurricanes like Kathrina! Quick, drive around the Block in a SUV, for New Orleans! Everyone who doesnt is unpatriotic and should be shot! (ok, i might be exxagerating a bit))
One of the articles even states that global warming will even do more good than bad while not quite elaborating why, and then turns around and blames the established Views are based on assumptions more than on calculating odd parameters. Pot - Kettle - Black comes to mind.
In the end, what would finish us is still not global warming (whether we hasten it or not) but a dinosaur killer size comet (another theory that cant be proven 100%) - and no amount of Spaceshuttle, Atomic Bomb and Heroic Crew would save us then. We either do better than that, or we will go down in a big Bang (not the Big Bang at the start of the universe - wich is another theory that has quite a lot of holes in it, and cant be proven because it assumes the laws of physics changed since then, or to state in another wording: "a wizard did it!" or, even more different: "God did it!").
Deckard Canine wrote:Joel Achenbach noted that environmental questions tend not to have simple answers. Did global warming cause Hurricane Katrina? Yes and no, he says. Warming does not increase the frequency of hurricanes, but it does increase the intensity.
TMLutas wrote:And people want to divert trillions of dollars and kill people because of those diversions based on numbers that nobody checked between 1998 and 2002?
I must have overlooked something -- when did killing people enter the equation? Are you referring to severe population control measures in the name of environmentalism?
When you knock a point off of economic growth in a 3rd world country, people who were surviving on the margin will die. This is as sure as sunrise. Since the 3rd world uses the dirtiest of energy sources, has the dirtiest industry, and is the lowest hanging fruit for future pollution reduction measures it is also as sure as sunrise that 3rd world pollution reduction measures will be where the debate shifts once the profound inadequacy and failure of Kyoto is finally fully internalized by the international environmental movement. It's already starting.
Reducing economic growth kills. Climate change can also kill and that's a legitimate reason to take a hard look at what's going on with the climate. But I don't think that trading uncertain future dead for sure near term deaths is a positive thing unless we are talking very few near term deaths and very many long-term deaths. In other words, there's a legitimate time discount function on condemning people to death via public policy choices that both sides of this debate should address.
Environmentalists try to monkey around with how the answers to running those equations come out by convincing us that the economic costs of controls are about "making do with less" in the 1st world. This is simply not the whole story. Public policy decisions, no matter which side wins out are likely to kill people. Who dies and when it happens is what is what is up in the air which is why I am so adamant about doing this rigorously. The lives in play deserve better than the kind of slapdash scientific oversight that was applied to MBH98 whether or not the errors in that paper ultimately matter to its final conclusions (M&M say they do, MBH say they don't but both agree that there was error enough to merit a formal correction).
TMLutas wrote:
Does the name Henk Tennekes ring a bell? It didn't to me until I googled Europe global warming skeptics and found his name along with Aksel Winn-Nielsen, Alfonso Sutera, and Antonio Speranza in this article talking about how such voices get silenced. After reading that article I don't much care for the scare quotes around the word specialists and I think that after reading the article you might understand why.
No, it didnt ring a bell to me. It seems its a good thing we dont just have 4 or 5 ish Scientists in Europe. After reading the articles (well, at least i tried... Reading a Science paper is hard enough if you read it in your mother language - reading it in a second or third language is a receipe of getting it wrong, I fear) I'm still not convinced that blaming EVERYTHING on the Earth axis shift (wich is a theory that also is quite accepted) and Thermogeological Catastrophes that _might_ happen and _might_ be worse than our digging up of fossiles and setting them free in the atmosphere is the way to go. To me, the "anti-alarmists" sound like people paid by the petro-industry. No honest, they practically advertise burning of fossiles (Global warming might counteract hurricanes like Kathrina! Quick, drive around the Block in a SUV, for New Orleans! Everyone who doesnt is unpatriotic and should be shot! (ok, i might be exxagerating a bit))
One of the articles even states that global warming will even do more good than bad while not quite elaborating why, and then turns around and blames the established Views are based on assumptions more than on calculating odd parameters. Pot - Kettle - Black comes to mind.
In the end, what would finish us is still not global warming (whether we hasten it or not) but a dinosaur killer size comet (another theory that cant be proven 100%) - and no amount of Spaceshuttle, Atomic Bomb and Heroic Crew would save us then. We either do better than that, or we will go down in a big Bang (not the Big Bang at the start of the universe - wich is another theory that has quite a lot of holes in it, and cant be proven because it assumes the laws of physics changed since then, or to state in another wording: "a wizard did it!" or, even more different: "God did it!").
You are overstating the point I was making so let me make myself clearer. I was objecting to the fact that you denied that legitimate scientific skeptics pf global warming existed in Europe. I found several in a quick google search which tells me that you've been drinking some sort of groupthink kool-aid that is trying to stuff these voices down some orwellian memory hole and you didn't even bother checking. Snide implications of science being bent to some sort of sinister american national greed don't stand up too well when skeptics exist 'in good old europe'.
This problem is independent of whether or not the skeptics are correct. I think that it would be appropriate to at least take a sentence to simply acknowledge that, why yes, they exist and they are legitimate scientists before going on to the subsequent point of whether or not they are right.
Most of the reasonable skeptics that I have read do not point to any one cause of global warming but rather that the situation is a lot more complex and that a significant amount, even a majority of the warming may be coming from causes beyond human control like increased solar output (they point to some sketchy evidence of planetary warming on Jupiter and on Mars, for example), axial shift, and other causes. Other forms of skepticism are on the 'cure' part of the debate, with geoengineering advocates being the most intriguing group of anathematized outcasts for me.
