[Al_U_Card]

 onoway, on 2013-March-25, 21:28, said:

Interesting talk. Learned a lot

Indeed. I was totally unaware of this tech and he explains it very clearly.

That we came that close to developing it is sad. More bombs and profits instead, what a surprise!

[mike777]

 Al_U_Card, on 2013-March-26, 06:41, said:

Indeed. I was totally unaware of this tech and he explains it very clearly.

That we came that close to developing it is sad. More bombs and profits instead, what a surprise!

Interesting per the clip you can also use some of this to make fresh water from sea water while also creating electricity from a gas turbine.

Hopefully some venture capitalists can see a way to fund this and make money.

For some reason people forget that it was venture capitalists, risk takers, who made the internet what it is today, not the government.

[Daniel1960]

 FM75, on 2013-March-25, 21:25, said:

One might read a lot about water supply, shortages, etc. Let's think about this within the closed system of the planet.

1) Is this reasonable? - Yes, the earth is not losing hydrogen or oxygen to space.

2) If we can accept 1, then we know that the potential quantity of water on earth is constant. - The potential quantity of water molecules is then limited to the minimum of half of the number hydrogen atoms and the number of oxygen atoms.

3) 2 is irrefutable (ignoring fission and fusion - neither of which is significant for the two atoms in question on earth). So the supply of water boils down to the chemistry.

4) When we talk about water, we are usually concerned with its quantity in the liquid state. To be sure, if we are concerned about shortages, ice might be an issue. Let's agree that nobody is concerned that the geographic quantity of ice is increasing (in the near term). The limit of atmospheric water is pretty limited unless you reach temperatures that are well beyond those that support life - The earth is not a high pressure boiler.

5) So now we are concerned only with the normal chemistry of water - which brings us to the water cycle that is taught in elementary science books. If the quantity of water is to change substantially, the normal equilibrium of transitions to H20 and from H20, or H2 and O2 must have a driving force causing an increase in some other hydrides and oxides.

6) Absent a demonstration of that globally - all water discussions become "local", not geographic.

So if there is a water shortage, it must be accompanied somewhere else by a water surplus.

In this argument, I am not considering whether there is enough water to support an increasing human population.

I will agree with all your points, with #6 being the only one of great concern. The use of water for irrigation, industry and drinking can and does lead to local shortages. The entire water issue revolves around the point with which you do not consider; an increasing human population. Thesu uses lead to increasing amounts of "waste water," which runs off towards the great ocean sink (water surplus). Indeed, much research as gone into assessign the sea level rise due to ground water depletion for these uses. The global circulation and water cycle cannot refresh these reservoirs as fast as they are being depleted. Increasing use of desalination will be required in the future to supply fresh water.

[hrothgar]

 mike777, on 2013-March-26, 10:52, said:

For some reason people forget that it was venture capitalists, risk takers, who made the internet what it is today, not the government.

What a crock...

The TCP/IP protocol suite was developed by DARPA as part of a DoD contract.
HTTP was developed at CERN (another government funded institution).
Almost all of the significant e-commerce developments were pioneered by pornographers.
Most of the innovation these days is coming out of the Open Source community.

I will readily admit that the venture capital played a significant role funding companies for Cisco to acquire. However, I'm not sure whether they actually accelerated the pace of innovation.

[mike777]

Again it was the risk takers, the entrepreneur who created the internet for what it is today. Of course Darpa was involved, no one is claiming otherwise. darpa and cern had a great idea, the entrepreneur took those ideas and created something more than a military communication network.

It is a crock to say the govt created today's internet. That is the lie. The process remained self-directed and unpredictable at every step, a chain of unintended uses.


As someone put it, governments should spend on nonteleological tinkering, not research. Payoff from research is from extremistan, they follow a power-law of statistical distribution. I am not suggesting the govt should spend no money.

The internet shows how the recapture of miltary expenditures with innovations have a huge payoff, but not as intended.

[mike777]

 Daniel1960, on 2013-March-26, 11:12, said:

I will agree with all your points, with #6 being the only one of great concern. The use of water for irrigation, industry and drinking can and does lead to local shortages. The entire water issue revolves around the point with which you do not consider; an increasing human population. Thesu uses lead to increasing amounts of "waste water," which runs off towards the great ocean sink (water surplus). Indeed, much research as gone into assessign the sea level rise due to ground water depletion for these uses. The global circulation and water cycle cannot refresh these reservoirs as fast as they are being depleted. Increasing use of desalination will be required in the future to supply fresh water.

yes it seems we know how to create fresh water, what we need is a cheaper, reliable, safer power source or sources.


btw the clip suggests putting these power plants on subs.

[Daniel1960]

Meanwhile half-way around the world (Russia, not Australia), scientists are warning of a coming ice age, similar to the LIA.

http://www.thegwpf.o...s-warn-ice-age/

http://ccsenet.org/j...iew/14754/10140

Here is the summarizing graph from the preceding article:

http://iceagenow.inf...ov-forecast.png

Of course, these forecasts are much more easily accepted during the recent, cold winter; as opposed to previous warm winters.

[mike777]

The end of the clip notes that coal and gas release more radioactivity than would ever be allowed by a nuke power plant.

[onoway]

Re future water shortages:
A good deal of the problem rests in the way water is handled. The Tar sands in Alberta are using a HUGE amount of water, much of which is pretty clearly contaminated when it is returned to the Athabasca (that is, water not sent to the ponds which are admittedly so toxic that any bird landing in them will die.) The drilling rigs always used to use water to drill with and I have spoken to several people who had their water suddenly start to taste or/and sometimes smell awful or even flow some weird color when the drilling rigs hit an underground stream, frequently miles away from their land.

Industrial agriculture is wasting water with the emphasis on constant cultivation of monocrops and mostly bare soil except for said crops, and contaminating the runoff through chemicals which are not entirely used by the crops and which ends up dissolved in the water.

The toxic stuff industry produces needs to be dealt with on a governmental level as 99% of companies will always get away with as much as they can in the interests of the bottom line. The Tar sands companies insist they are not contaminating the water although every indication is that they are through a plethora of otherwise rare cancers and other medical conditions which now abound downstream when they never did before. Locals who have lived in the area for generations now warn visitors not to eat the fish anymore, and even the moose and other large creatures are showing anomolies in their livers and other organs. So.

Agricultural runoff contaminating waterways can be dealt with in two ways, (aside from just not using toxic chemicals in the first place!) 1) change the method of production to a more sustainable one which captures and holds the water that falls instead of having it run off and/or evaporate, and 2)do remediation on the edges of fields to prevent the chemicals in the runoff from reaching creeks,rivers and lakes. Both are proven technologies; the first is very actively being developed in Australia and other places through permaculture methods. Geoff Lawton's Greening the Desert was the flagship video for this, there are any number of people doing this successfully all over the world now, much of it in very arid lands such as Jordan.

Agricutural remediation has been proven to work, special strains of mushrooms in a small barrier of mycelium impregnated straw have been proven to sop up the chemicals out of the runoff water. This technique has also been used to clean river water in South America when oil companies simply decamped and left all their toxic stuff beside or in the rivers that the locals depended on for water. That cleanup was done by a (mostly?) volunteer group out of the States and i'm not sure they were able financially to complete it, but they cleaned up a lot.

Obviously it is not an overnight fix but we didn't cause the problems overnight either. Results have sometimes actually been astonishingly fast; results such as Sepp Holtzer re-establishing in only one year, using no concrete or other such materials, a lake in Portugal which had been dry for years. It would be a whole lot faster and cheaper than trying to supply everyone with desalinated water, no question.

We aren't destined to run out of water IF we change the way we handle it. Wasting and poisoning it is hardly the way to go if we are worried about future supplies. Seems to me it would also be a hell of a lot cheaper to start treating it with respect rather than trying to build desalination plants everywhere and then piping the water all over the place. I have read that up to 90% of the old aquifers in the States..the ones in subterranean crannies which do not easily replenish, are nearing depletion. And there was a dust storm reminiscent of the thirties in Arizona last year. More than time to change our ways.

[mike777]

I certainly agree with the multi approach and not to put all of our eggs into one basket when it comes to fresh water.

I just prefer to use those approaches where the person has skin in the game and not use those where they dont.

I mean if some of these approaches work I would think an oil, coal, gas, etc company would jump at them if they are cheaper or safer.

To use your great example of the lake in Portugal I wonder If the locals put up some money in choosing that approach over some other approach?

I am not against the idea of giving these guys and other guys/gals some taxpayer money to tinker around.

[Al_U_Card]

 Daniel1960, on 2013-March-26, 11:54, said:

Meanwhile half-way around the world (Russia, not Australia), scientists are warning of a coming ice age, similar to the LIA.

http://www.thegwpf.o...s-warn-ice-age/

http://ccsenet.org/j...iew/14754/10140

Here is the summarizing graph from the preceding article:

http://iceagenow.inf...ov-forecast.png

Of course, these forecasts are much more easily accepted during the recent, cold winter; as opposed to previous warm winters.

Then, of course there was (Check for the Steven Shneider and James Hansen quotes.):

Coming ice-age

and more recently (Including Stephan Ramsdorf of RealClimate.)

Gulf stream gonzo

Models gone wild would be another title.

[onoway]

 mike777, on 2013-March-26, 15:02, said:

I certainly agree with the multi approach and not to put all of our eggs into one basket when it comes to fresh water.

I just prefer to use those approaches where the person has skin in the game and not use those where they dont.

I mean if some of these approaches work I would think an oil, coal, gas, etc company would jump at them if they are cheaper or safer.

To use your great example of the lake in Portugal I wonder If the locals put up some money in choosing that approach over some other approach?

I am not against the idea of giving these guys and other guys/gals some taxpayer money to tinker around.

My understanding was that the problem was basically thrown out to the world and of the people who responded most said it could not be done and all the others (except Holtzer) said it MIGHT work with extensive use of concrete and technology,(in much the same spirit that the Army Corps of Engineers revamped the Mississippi water catchment system years and years ago,I suppose.) I cannot now find the site that I got that info from so can't say if it's true or not.

I believe the Grace Foundation put up money to put this in motion, what percentage and who else was involved in the funding I don't know. It's likely all in his book, which I have not yet got.
Anyway, I found a video of the Project in Portugal

[mike777]

my only point is I have a bias against ngo, i have a bias towards programs the locals bet their own money...time...energy.

With that said I have no problem giving usa taxpayer money to these gys/gals to tinker on these issues....NOT 500 milion to one.


I am strongly in favor of a multi approach when it comes to fresh water projects...ok this liquid thorem thingy sounds really cool.


per the post it seems regulation, red tape is the biggest cost, ok central govt....

[Al_U_Card]

The WRL effect is certainly an environmentalist's wet-dream.
Very clear and very useful. The only thing to notice is the absence....of people. A nice wilderness setting but as for population density, not much room for busy people busy raping and pillaging the earth, as they are wont to do.
Seriously, like the other vids, a good idea that merits application and evaluation.
Population reduction and control is, as per usual, for the "other" guy.

[Daniel1960]

RC has brought to my attention an article just published in the Economist concerning climate sensitivity.

http://www.economist...ensitive_matter

This seems particularly well written, especially for a business magazine.

[Al_U_Card]

The tide appears to be turning gradually, possibly because the sea-level beneath it refuses to rise in a catastrophic manner outside of model projections...

[onoway]

 Al_U_Card, on 2013-March-27, 13:55, said:

The WRL effect is certainly an environmentalist's wet-dream.
Very clear and very useful. The only thing to notice is the absence....of people. A nice wilderness setting but as for population density, not much room for busy people busy raping and pillaging the earth, as they are wont to do.
Seriously, like the other vids, a good idea that merits application and evaluation.
Population reduction and control is, as per usual, for the "other" guy.

This was placed in an area of not many people as the country there was in the process of desertification and could not support many people. Indeed, one of their early concerns was whether or not it could be brought to support 300. Now it's not only supporting that 300 but myriads of other people as well who come there to learn and study or just visit. The lands downstream outside their boundaries are also getting observable benefit.

There has been a trend in that this and other permaculture techniques are most often being used on land which is considered beyond help, dead to the possibilities of being useful.It's like waiting until a wound gets gangrene before tending to it. Some of these have been in areas of such low rainfall that even without abuse of the land, it was extremely difficult to get it to produce much. Permaculture techniques are bringing such lands back to health and productivity. Some few farmers are changing over before their land is so drastically abused, but the transition to sustainable agriculture isn't moving as fast as it would if governments and universities were less dogmatic about old techniques. However, it IS happening.

One thing is absolutely clear, it cannot be done without trees and plants to hold and shelter the soil.Come to think of it; an early version of this was what brought the Canadian prairies out of the dust storms of the 30's. Scientists finally found a grass which could grow in conditions which beat everything else to death and then trees could survive as well. Once some trees and grasses held the soil in place, then other plants could survive as well, and the land started to heal.

This was all thrown away by the present Canadian government when it dismantled everything to do with that program and put all the buffer land up for sale which had been held for community livestock grazing only for the past 80 years, no grain farming which would bare the soil and lead to wind erosion again. They also stopped the program which provided shelterbelt trees to stop the wind at low or no cost to farmers who otherwise would not be able to afford them. Ignorance in pursuit of short term gain. In contrast, some States are STARTING such programs.

It also can't be done without taking into consideration how the natural systems operate and working with them. It's a waste of effort to demand water flow freely uphill for our convenience, which if not literally what people expect, reflects the attitude of way too many, including scientists, who insist we can bullyrag nature into doing our will no matter what without consequences.

[mike777]

As I pointed out in another post, farmland and agriculture is an area that I expect to boom in the coming decades.

As you point out the biggest obstacle may be government and universities who will not get out of the way and let risk takers, take risk and profit from the benefits. The last thing we need are a few in power trying to pick the winners and losers based on what they think is best.

Again I would have no issue with using some taxpayer money to tinker about, but please tinker and then get out of the way. I certainly have no issue with the superrich Grace family spending their own money on this stuff.

As you point out the last thing we want to do is put farmers in the position where they cannot take the risk and reap the benefits.

[FM75]

 Daniel1960, on 2013-March-26, 11:12, said:

I will agree with all your points, with #6 being the only one of great concern. The use of water for irrigation, industry and drinking can and does lead to local shortages. The entire water issue revolves around the point with which you do not consider; an increasing human population. Thesu uses lead to increasing amounts of "waste water," which runs off towards the great ocean sink (water surplus). Indeed, much research as gone into assessign the sea level rise due to ground water depletion for these uses. The global circulation and water cycle cannot refresh these reservoirs as fast as they are being depleted. Increasing use of desalination will be required in the future to supply fresh water.

I would not think of the oceans as being a sink for fresh water. Roughly 80% of the earth's surface is ocean today, and if the ocean level increases by inches it will still be about 80%. So the oceans should not be considered a sink, since the bulk of water dropped on land was originally salt-water.

As to the human population, I do consider that, but not with respect to the water cycle. Humans are NOT a water sink. All the water that comes in goes out. Respiration and urination keep it in balance no matter what the total population.

The human population plays a key role in the arguments about atmospheric CO2. But you won't see the lawyers and politicians that write up the finding of the climate change proceedings admitting that human population is even one of the driving variables in the models. (it is not politically palatable to suggest that the solution to GCC is a REDUCTION of the human population. ROFL.)

Even normal wars are not sufficient to drive down the population. Historically, only disease has been capable of that. Scientifically, we have reached the point where disease invention could be a GCC "solution". For sure, we now have the military capability to reduce the human population.

Will we some day need to reach that point philosophically and religiously. Those two do seem to be lagging science by a few millennia.

Our "faith" in science to solve our problems might exceed our scientific ability to solve our problems with "faith".

Or we might recognize that the models predicting our demise suffer from a problem most clearly stated by the famous Yogi Berra.


"Predictions are hard, especially about the future."

The corollary to that is that they are especially hard, the farther into the future you make them!

125 years ago, (before cars) "scientists" worried about the climate could rightly have been worried about our civilization being buried in horse manure - if they had bothered to notice the trends in population and transportation.

[blackshoe]

Predictions are easy. Accurate predictions are hard.