US will meet Paris accord commitments even if Donald Trump withdraws

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  • Solray
    Solray Registered Users Posts: 246 ✭✭✭
    What's good for America is good for the world since so many countries run on USD.
    If solar makes us money, then solar it will be. ;)
  • solarvic
    solarvic Solar Expert Posts: 1,071 ✭✭✭✭
    We have oil, gas coal, solar and other renewable sources. Let us use it and the young people  have lots of other new jobs so I can keep getting my social security I paid into all my working years.  A lot of opertunitys are going by the wayside. Dairy farmers could power their farms and feed the grid. They coild heat their home with the heat taken from the milk. Just think of all the possibilitys. There is a cheese plant that my brother works at that generates their electric from the gas that comes off the whey. solarvic
  • mcgivor
    mcgivor Solar Expert Posts: 3,854 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2017 #34
    Without delving into politics there are things to consider with climate change, which scientifically has links to the human consumption of fossil fuels, firstly we all share the planet, there are no borders or boundaries in the atmosphere, what one nation dose, indirectly affects others. In order to achieve a symbiotic relationship, cooperation is needed, sacrifices have to be made, including assistance to those ill prepared, or financially unable to effect change. This, unfortunately, is influenced by business, which in turn influences politics, the phrase "Money makes the world go round " couldn't be more accurate, at least for now. Strange how despite being the supposedly most advanced species, also makes us the most destructive, we humans however are part of nature and nature has a way of healing itself, even with a little help from us. Perhaps it already too late to reverse the damage done, targets to reduce the emissions buy 2050, or whatever are meaningless in the history of the planet, so what do we do? Hell I don't know, business as usual?  Won't make much difference in the ultimate outcome,  it seems few are willing to make concessions in the short term, tell that to the middle class in China, which is greater than the entire population of the United States, and growing. 
    We all have opinions, but individually they are tailored to what our expectations are and in the big picture it doesn't change much.

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  • Estragon
    Estragon Registered Users Posts: 4,496 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I agree with most of what you say, but the issues are inherently political. For example, although the timing and extent are uncertain, it's likely sea levels will rise to a point where coastal Florida becomes uninhabitable. Will people be compensated? Also, what happens if much of the southwest doesn't have enough fresh water to support more than a fraction of current population? There will be massive dislocation and economic disruption, possibly over a short period of time if some of the non-linear feedback effects (eg methane from melting permafrost and/or ocean NG) turn out to be dominant.

    If the issues can't be addressed politically, history suggests they will be addressed by what's been called " the continuation of diplomacy through other means".
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  • mcgivor
    mcgivor Solar Expert Posts: 3,854 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2017 #36
    Purposefully politics were avoided, primarily because as individuals we have little or no control, the focus seems to be on what would happen in the United States, there are far more people in the world who would be affected by a slight increase in sea level and Florida is not one of them, all of whom have no hope  compensation. The water rights in the south west United States were orchestrated by William  Mulholland in an effort to supply Los Angeles with water to develop property , the diversion of water from Mono Lake, including the Colarado water rights  is an example, further exploitation of ground water, for the purpose of agriculture  led to the current water shortages but none of these have a direct connection to the global situation, they are regonal, political influence raises it's ugly face again.
    1500W, 6× Schutten 250W Poly panels , Schneider MPPT 60 150 CC, Schneider SW 2524 inverter, 400Ah LFP 24V nominal battery with Battery Bodyguard BMS 
    Second system 1890W  3 × 300W No name brand poly, 3×330 Sunsolar Poly panels, Morningstar TS 60 PWM controller, no name 2000W inverter 400Ah LFP 24V nominal battery with Daly BMS, used for water pumping and day time air conditioning.  
    5Kw Yanmar clone single cylinder air cooled diesel generator for rare emergency charging and welding.
  • Estragon
    Estragon Registered Users Posts: 4,496 ✭✭✭✭✭
    @solray - you can take the "stupid motorist" approach on a small scale, but do you really think that with most of the 20 million people in Florida living in coastal areas flooded, this wouldn't affect the rest of the country? Just the affect it would have on the banking and insurance industries alone would leave a mark.

    @mcgivor - my focus on the US was because the thread was about the US withdrawal from Paris. Flooding etc will absolutely have worse impacts in many places globally, with huge populations living in river deltas. There is no way the US will be able to take an "I'm alright Jack" approach. It will be involved, one way or another. Even if mountain snowpacks survive to keep California almond growers in business, the US is going to be affected.

    I know we have little impact individually, I'm actually fairly hopeful. There are many precedents for getting agreements done (eg. Montreal -CFC) and public opinion drives polititions to get them done.
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  • Solray
    Solray Registered Users Posts: 246 ✭✭✭
    Sea level won't rise overnight. People will have time to pull back front the coastlines if they choose to.
    You won't wake up one morning to 3 feet of water in your house.
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    Solray said:
    Sea level won't rise overnight. People will have time to pull back front the coastlines if they choose to.
    You won't wake up one morning to 3 feet of water in your house.
    At least in the US, that's true.  It's not as true in poor places.  Many people don't have the option to just move if they choose to.
  • Estragon
    Estragon Registered Users Posts: 4,496 ✭✭✭✭✭
    > @Solray said:
    > Sea level won't rise overnight. People will have time to pull back front the coastlines if they choose to.
    > You won't wake up one morning to 3 feet of water in your house.

    Even assuming it doesn't happen suddenly, which may not be a safe assumption, you'll still have a massive write down of lending against Florida real estate, and steadily increasing insurance losses.
    Off-grid.  
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  • Solray
    Solray Registered Users Posts: 246 ✭✭✭
    Why do you think you could buy property on Gulf Shores for almost nothing after Katrina? 
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    For many places, it is not sea level rise but land falling. Mostly from well water pumping add even pull extraction (something like 2x land subsidence vs sea level rise).

    Also places like New Orleans where major rivers have been rerouted and sediment deposits directed away from deltas that have been built upon (and ground settlement in deltas), there are big issues about sustainability... But CO2 is not a factor in those locations (or, at best, a very minor component).

    http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/27/5/article/GSATG312A.1.htm

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • engineer
    engineer Registered Users Posts: 13 ✭✭
    Solray said:
    Sea level won't rise overnight. People will have time to pull back front the coastlines if they choose to.
    You won't wake up one morning to 3 feet of water in your house.
    Pulling back from the coastline isn't an option for everybody. Anyway, sea level isn't the only problem. In some countries like India and China, you can't find clean air to breathe. Spending a day in some cities is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes.

    "We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children"
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  • Solray
    Solray Registered Users Posts: 246 ✭✭✭
    edited July 2017 #44
    That's not a problem the US can solve though, that is something those countries need to address if they want to. There are electric cars to help with emissions on the roads and in cities, but that does nothing about the production of the power to charge them. I think in China, the utilities are State owned, not private, the US isn't going to help there at all. There are electric cars in China too. Kandi Technologies Group. If you want to help promote them, buy their stock.
    Bigger government and more regulation isn't a good answer to any problem though. The key is in making it more profitable to do the right thing, then it will get done. Laws are made to be broken and always are skirted by the worst offenders.

    In all honesty, this is a political topic and should have been deleted as soon as it was posted according to the forum rules since the driving motivator behind the Paris Accord is all politics and almost no real science.
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Solar power politics are fine in the forum. Just as long as we discuss the subject with respect to the members/posters here. The old "attack the post and not the poster" saying works well here.

    We also have the "In the Weeds" section for more "off topic" discussions too.

    Given that we have international forum here--Certain things just do not work such as "gun jokes", nationalism based threads, and such.

    I prefer the model of discussing the problems/issues and working towards solutions rather than the easy hits against posters.

    No matter "your" feelings about Donald Trump, we can discuss the policies and supporting evidence without getting into the weeks of party politics.

    -Bill

    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • Photowhit
    Photowhit Solar Expert Posts: 6,002 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Solray said:
    Bigger government and more regulation isn't a good answer to any problem though. The key is in making it more profitable to do the right thing, then it will get done. 
    Please think about this statement!

    Pretty much contradicts it's self! The I will argue that the federal tax credits in the US and Feed in tariff's in Germany largely fed the increase in solar production and the rapid reduction of prices in solar panels. It 'is' what made it profitable.
    Home system 4000 watt (Evergreen) array standing, with 2 Midnite Classic Lites,  Midnite E-panel, Magnum MS4024, Prosine 1800(now backup) and Exeltech 1100(former backup...lol), 660 ah 24v Forklift battery(now 10 years old). Off grid for 20 years (if I include 8 months on a bicycle).
    - Assorted other systems, pieces and to many panels in the closet to not do more projects.
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    But rapid growth was through outsourcing (to China and other places) and (unsustainable, IMHO) subsidies to local companies. And those places have had horrendous pollution issues from panel production and businesses that have started/grown/died in a decade.

    http://www.environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/6/21/are-we-headed-for-a-solar-waste-crisis
    • Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear power plants.

    • If solar and nuclear produce the same amount of electricity over the next 25 years that nuclear produced in 2016, and the wastes are stacked on football fields, the nuclear waste would reach the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (52 meters), while the solar waste would reach the height of two Mt. Everests (16 km). 

    • In countries like China, India, and Ghana, communities living near e-waste dumps often burn the waste in order to salvage the valuable copper wires for resale. Since this process requires burning off the plastic, the resulting smoke contains toxic fumes that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (birth defect-causing) when inhaled.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/siemens-to-close-ontario-wind-turbine-blade-plant-340-jobs-to-be-lost/article35716643/

    Ontario now has more than 4,700 MW of installed wind capacity – the most in Canada, according CanWEA. In 2016, the province began to pare back on renewable-energy projects, cutting a major renewable-energy procurement plan in a bid to save the province and rate-payers billions. Mr. Hickey did not comment on this directly when asked how it might have affected demand, except to say that the region’s outlook “played a factor in this decision.”

    In 2010, Siemens began investing $20-million in the 253,000-square-foot facility after Ontario’s Liberals signed a $7-billion deal with a Samsung Group-led consortium to develop a green-energy cluster in the province, as part of a 600-megawatt wind-energy commitment.

    Touted at the time as one of Canada’s biggest-ever green-energy bets, it drew criticism from other energy developers and provincial opposition members as both costly and potentially stifling to competition. The deal was renegotiated in 2013 after Samsung missed production deadlines.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    engineer said:
    Pulling back from the coastline isn't an option for everybody. Anyway, sea level isn't the only problem. In some countries like India and China, you can't find clean air to breathe. Spending a day in some cities is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes.

    Agreed.  Which is one of the drivers behind China's rapid implementation of renewables; they have much more immediate problems than climate change.
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    Solray said:
    That's not a problem the US can solve though, that is something those countries need to address if they want to. There are electric cars to help with emissions on the roads and in cities, but that does nothing about the production of the power to charge them.

    Right.  But renewable energy (specifically solar) does help solve the problem of emissions.  And combining solar with EV's is a win-win - because you can decide to charge only when you have surplus solar (or wind) power.  It's effectively free load shifting.
    In all honesty, this is a political topic and should have been deleted as soon as it was posted according to the forum rules since the driving motivator behind the Paris Accord is all politics and almost no real science.

    The science is pretty simple.  CO2 is a greenhouse gas which increases retained heat on Earth.  We are dramatically increasing the concentration of CO2.  The planet is warming as we increase CO2 concentrations, and is closely matching predictions.

    So it's based on science.  How you solve the problem - how you reduce CO2 emissions, how you decide where, when and how to cut, how to get people to agree to do that - is politics.  That's true of any big effort, whether it's the Apollo project, the Montreal protocol, the Panama Canal or the public-health vaccination efforts.

  • westbranch
    westbranch Solar Expert Posts: 5,183 ✭✭✭✭
    Bill in BC we had the Run-of-River (ROR) hydro power initiative,introduced with great fanfare and is now essentially dead except for the handful of projects that got $$ and approved,and built...  Good concept  of small developments and a few that ended up being almost as big as the BC Hydro backed mega projects ie: Site C which is now ~4 years into construction and ~7 yrs. to go...
    https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc/acquiring_power/closed_offerings/clean_power_call/outcome.html
    https://www.bchydro.com/energy-in-bc/acquiring_power/closed_offerings/clean_power_call/outcome.html

    Well ROR was a lot of expensive power!  BC Hydro contracted to purchase ROR power at up to~32 cents per kWh, while producing its own power at ~ 4 cents per kWh, and selling it to us at ~ 6 cents....  Message? we are going to have to raise the rates!  That did not go over with the populace, so the rate BC Hydro for ROR power dropped and a lot of proposals dropped off the list...

    http://www.energybc.ca/runofriver.html
    http://commonsensecanadian.ca/REPORTED_ELSEWHERE-detail/bcs-private-run-river-power-projects-horror-show-documents-reveal/

    and then there is the oversupply issue, where the plant is paid to NOT generate power

    https://www.desmog.ca/2016/04/05/b-c-hydro-paying-independent-power-producers-not-produce-power-due-oversupply

    As we know it's complex, once the batteries are in Float we are losing or 'dumping excess power'

     
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    No, CO2 is either not a green house gas, or a very weak one. Since, in general, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere follow temperature increases in the historical record by ~800 years (+ some large number like 600 years from Ice Cores, see my link way above), it does not appear to be a huge issue (worth dumping billions to trillions of dollars into).

    As a civilization, we should be much more fearful of cold weather (and ice sheets on crop lands) than hot weather (in non-Middle Eastern/African countries):

    http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cold-hot-weather-deaths-20150520-story.html

    Extreme heat waves like the one that killed more than 70,000 Europeans in 2003 may be the most visible examples of deadly weather, but cold days actually cause more deaths than hot ones, a new study says.

    After examining more than 74 million deaths that occurred in 13 countries from 1985 to 2012, researchers calculated that 7.3% of them could be attributed to cold weather and 0.4% to hot weather.

    In another counterintuitive finding, extreme weather — either hot or cold — was responsible for only 11% of the weather-related deaths, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Lancet.

    “Heat stroke on hot days and hypothermia on cold days only account for small proportions of excess deaths,” the international research team wrote.

    The researchers collected daily data on weather conditions, air pollution and deaths from 384 cities around the world. For each city, they calculated the temperature at which deaths were least likely to occur. All other days were compared to days with this “optimum” temperature.

    Greenhouse Gas is a highly incorrect technical term. It has been known for over a hundred years that the "IR Wave Length" filtering was not a major factor. The Green House Effect is caused by the prevention of Convective Currents in the air which cools the ground by caused by the heating of the sun. Glass walls simply prevent the atmosphere from circulating next to the warmed ground. This effect was first tested (scientifically) by Professor R.W Wood around 1909 (or a bit earlier):
    THERE appears to be a widespread belief that the comparatively high temperature produced within a closed space covered with glass, and exposed to solar radiation, results from a transformation of wave-length, that is, that the heat waves from the sun, which are able to penetrate the glass, fall upon the walls of the enclosure and raise its temperature: the heat energy is re-emitted by the walls in the form of much longer waves, which are unable to penetrate the glass, the greenhouse acting as a radiation trap. I have always felt some doubt as to whether this action played any very large part in the elevation of temperature. It appeared much more probable that the part played by the glass was the prevention of the escape of the warm air heated by the ground within the enclosure. If we open the doors of a greenhouse on a cold and windy day, the trapping of radiation appears to lose much of its efficacy. As a matter of fact I am of the opinion that a greenhouse made of a glass transparent to waves of every possible length would show a temperature nearly, if not quite, as high as that observed in a glass house. The transparent screen allows the solar radiation to warm the ground, and the ground in turn warms the air, but only the limited amount within the enclosure. In the "open," the ground is continually brought into contact with cold air by convection currents.

    To test the matter I constructed two enclosures of dead black cardboard, one covered with a glass plate, the other with a plate of rock-salt of equal thickness. The bulb of a themometer was inserted in each enclosure and the whole packed in cotton, with the exception of the transparent plates which were exposed. When exposed to sunlight the temperature rose gradually to 65 oC., the enclosure covered with the salt plate keeping a little ahead of the other, owing to the fact that it transmitted the longer waves from the sun, which were stopped by the glass. In order to eliminate this action the sunlight was first passed through a glass plate.

    There was now scarcely a difference of one degree between the temperatures of the two enclosures. The maximum temperature reached was about 55 oC. From what we know about the distribution of energy in the spectrum of the radiation emitted by a body at 55 o, it is clear that the rock-salt plate is capable of transmitting practically all of it, while the glass plate stops it entirely. This shows us that the loss of temperature of the ground by radiation is very small in comparison to the loss by convection, in other words that we gain very little from the circumstance that the radiation is trapped.
    It is kind of fun--You can point an IR Temperature Probe (gun) at the sky and get a subfreezing temperature reading even at high noon (don't point at sun). I just did that with my "cheap" IR meter and got ~ -4F on a 65F+ morning (11:30 am) with the white cladding of my house reading 110F.

    I know around here (south of San Francisco by 20 miles), CO2 does not affect our temperatures day to day. However, fog/low overcast/marine layer etc. does dramatically.

    If the question of sustainability are fossil fuels, mining, pollution, etc. Then, yes, conservation, recycling, (lower population--ducking now), etc. are all reasonable things to research/actions to take.

    But to pick out one item and make it paramount to the discussion, and the end justifies the means... Nope, I do not believe in that. This is an immensely complex subject and the present direction of our governments is highly questionable, if not, approaching suicidal.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • Solray
    Solray Registered Users Posts: 246 ✭✭✭
    I'd much prefer more CO2 in the air, since that fluctuates naturally and is absorbed by the earth without long term damage, than create billions of tons of toxic waste from solar panel production.
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2017 #53
    BB. said:
    No, CO2 is either not a green house gas, or a very weak one.
    It, of course, is a greenhouse gas, and that can (and has been) proven hundreds of times with simple laboratory experiments.  It passes shortwave radiation (i.e. light) but does not pass longwave radiation (i.e. infrared.)  Thus the sun hits the Earth, warms it - and that warmth can not radiate away as easily due to greenhouse gases.  Thus the Earth gets warmer.

    You are correct in that it is not the major greenhouse gas.  The one with the biggest effect is water vapor.  CO2 comes second, followed by methane and ozone.  That's good news - that means that doubling CO2 concentrations will only increase average temperatures about 6F, rather than 20-30F we would see if CO2 was the primary cause of the greenhouse effect.  Of course, that 6F may have bad effects on its own.
    Since, in general, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere follow temperature increases in the historical record by ~800 years (+ some large number like 600 years from Ice Cores, see my link way above), it does not appear to be a huge issue . . .
    One does not follow the other.  That's like claiming that people who die see a body core temperature decrease only after they are dead, so hypothermia is not a big risk to living humans.
    It is kind of fun--You can point an IR Temperature Probe (gun) at the sky and get a subfreezing temperature reading even at high noon (don't point at sun)
    Yep, and in that case you are seeing greenhouse gases in action.  You do not see -454F on that meter (the background temperature of the universe) because our atmosphere reflects back some of the IR that is radiating from the ground.  The temperature you'll see will be higher when it's very humid, and lower when it's dry - but will never go below a bottom limit due primarily to the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
    I know around here (south of San Francisco by 20 miles), CO2 does not affect our temperatures day to day.
    True; it only affects them on a long term basis.  In other words, it doesn't make one day 20 degrees warmer than another day - but it makes the year, on average, a few degrees warmer than it was 100 years ago.
    But to pick out one item and make it paramount to the discussion, and the end justifies the means... Nope, I do not believe in that. This is an immensely complex subject . . .
    Agreed there.  The climate is complex.
    the present direction of our governments is highly questionable, if not, approaching suicidal.
    Given that we've been pursuing this direction for decades, and the results have been mostly good (cleaner skies, cheaper renewable energy) I don't see any imminent suicides.
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    Solray said:
    I'd much prefer more CO2 in the air, since that fluctuates naturally and is absorbed by the earth without long term damage, than create billions of tons of toxic waste from solar panel production.
    Coal power plants put far more toxic waste in our atmosphere, land and water than solar panel production - including nuclear waste, some of which ends up in US schools.  So if your goal is reduction of toxic waste, prioritizing solar over coal makes a lot of sense.
  • Solray
    Solray Registered Users Posts: 246 ✭✭✭
    > @bill von novak said:
    > Solray said:
    >
    >
    > I'd much prefer more CO2 in the air, since that fluctuates naturally and is absorbed by the earth without long term damage, than create billions of tons of toxic waste from solar panel production.
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > Coal power plants put far more toxic waste in our atmosphere, land and water than solar panel production - including nuclear waste, some of which ends up in US schools.  So if your goal is reduction of toxic waste, prioritizing solar over coal makes a lot of sense.

    Nope. My goal is getting the US back on top in the global community where it was before the Democrats started their policies of global redistribution of wealth. Who can forget Hilary's stove bill that had US stove manufacturers shipping free subsidized stoves to places without any electricity to run them? Lol
  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    Solray said:
    Nope. My goal is getting the US back on top in the global community where it was before the Democrats started their policies of global redistribution of wealth. Who can forget Hilary's stove bill that had US stove manufacturers shipping free subsidized stoves to places without any electricity to run them? Lol
    Ah.   If your goals are based on partisan politics rather than science, of course you will have different goals.
  • westbranch
    westbranch Solar Expert Posts: 5,183 ✭✭✭✭
    Gentlemen,pardon the pun,  'you are all wet'  on the topic..... Please read up on Henrik Svensmark, a Danish researcher, that investigated the link back in the last century that it is WATER VAPOUR and cosmic rays that are at the heart of the warming and cooling of the atmosphere.

    WIKI:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Svensmark
     In 1997, Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen popularised a theory that linked galactic cosmic rays and global climate change mediated primarily by variations in the intensity of the solar wind, which they have termed cosmoclimatology.

    To investigate the role of cosmic rays in cloud formation low in the Earth's atmosphere, the SKY experiment used natural muons (heavy electrons) that can penetrate even to the basement of the National Space Institute in Copenhagen. The hypothesis, verified by the experiment, is that electrons released in the air by th

    http://drtimball.com/2011/svensmark’s-cosmic-theory-confirmed-explains-more-than-solar-role-in-climate-change/







     
    KID #51B  4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
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    Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
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  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    Gentlemen,pardon the pun,  'you are all wet'  on the topic..... Please read up on Henrik Svensmark, a Danish researcher, that investigated the link back in the last century that it is WATER VAPOUR and cosmic rays that are at the heart of the warming and cooling of the atmosphere.

    The "cosmic rays cause climate change" theory has been thoroughly debunked. For one thing, cosmic ray intensity changes on a 11 year cycle due to sunspot activity; during that time, temperatures have climbed steadily..  Here's a good summary from Scientific American:

    =============

    Cosmic Rays Not Causing Climate Change


    LONDON – Changes in solar activity, sunspots and cosmic rays, and their effects on clouds have contributed no more than 10 percent to global warming, according to two British scientists.

    The findings, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, reconfirm the basic science that increasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing most climate change. They also reexamine the alternative case made by climate skeptics: that it is the Sun's changing activity and not us that is causing the Earth to heat up.

    The two scientists, Terry Sloan at the University of Lancaster and Sir Arnold Wolfendale at the University of Durham, conclude that neither changes in the activity of the sun, nor its impact in blocking cosmic rays, can be a significant contributor to global warming.

    Clouds and their role in keeping the Earth's surface cool by reflecting sunlight back into space have been one of the biggest uncertainties of climate change science.

    The acknowledged role of sunspots and cosmic rays in forming clouds has been fertile ground for climate deniers, who have cast doubt on whether anthropogenic climate change (in other words, change caused by humans) is occurring at all.

    Sunspot activity, which ebbs and flows on an 11-year cycle, decreases the cosmic ray flux by periodically increasing the solar wind – a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun.

    The solar wind's greater magnetic field deflects away some of the cosmic rays that would otherwise hit the Earth from elsewhere in the galaxy. So, if the theory linking cosmic rays and cloud formation is correct, increased sunspot activity could potentially reduce cloud cover.

    To try to quantify the effect that solar activity – whether directly or through cosmic rays – may have had on global temperatures in the 20th century, Sloan and Wolfendale compared data on the rate of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere with the record of global temperatures going back to 1955.

    They found a small correlation between cosmic rays and global temperatures occurring every 22 years; however, the changing cosmic ray rate lagged behind the change in temperatures by between one and two years, suggesting that the cause of the temperature rise might not be attributable to cosmic rays and cloud formation, but could be caused by the direct effects of the sun.

    By comparing the small oscillations in cosmic ray rate and temperature with the overall trends in both since 1955, Sloan and Wolfendale found that less than 14 percent of the global warming seen during this period could have been caused by solar activity.

    =========================

  • Solray
    Solray Registered Users Posts: 246 ✭✭✭
    Non partisan Patriotism, not partisan politics. :)
    You are right, I do not have the goals of redistributing the worlds wealth from the richest countries to the poorest ones, I would rather the poorest countries work to do better for themselves so the entire global community grows together rather than bringing the richest countries down to a common level with the poorest ones. All countries have ways of improving even if they lack natural resources because they have the most prized and valuable commodity in the human mind and the ideas it can produce.

    I am for improving the quality of life in the US and in the rest of the world by improving the quality of life in the poorest areas but not by lowering it in the wealthiest ones.

    Schools teach down to the slowest child's abilities and we now have the worst test scores in history as a result. 'No child left behind' sounds great until the scores come in. When I was in school you had to earn your right to get placed in the advanced classes and it was a goal worth attaining.

    Anyhow, I don't think forcing a policy that has yet to be proven scientifically and saying it is based on science is a good thing.

    As for global warming:

    Global warming alarmists and their allies in the liberal media have been caught doctoring the results of a widely cited paper asserting there is a 97-percent scientific consensus regarding human-caused global warming. After taking a closer look at the paper, investigative journalists report the authors’ claims of a 97-pecent consensus relied on the authors misclassifying the papers of some of the world’s most prominent global warming skeptics. At the same time, the authors deliberately presented a meaningless survey question so they could twist the responses to fit their own preconceived global warming alarmism.

    Global warming alarmist John Cook, founder of the misleadingly named blog site Skeptical Science, published a paper with several other global warming alarmists claiming they reviewed nearly 12,000 abstracts of studies published in the peer-reviewed climate literature. Cook reported that he and his colleagues found that 97 percent of the papers that expressed a position on human-caused global warming “endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”

    As is the case with other ‘surveys’ alleging an overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming, the question surveyed had absolutely nothing to do with the issues of contention between global warming alarmists and global warming skeptics. The question Cook and his alarmist colleagues surveyed was simply whether humans have caused some global warming. The question is meaningless regarding the global warming debate because most skeptics as well as most alarmists believe humans have caused some global warming. The issue of contention dividing alarmists and skeptics is whether humans are causing global warming of such negative severity as to constitute a crisis demanding concerted action.

    Either through idiocy, ignorance, or both, global warming alarmists and the liberal media have been reporting that the Cook study shows a 97 percent consensus that humans are causing a global warming crisis. However, that was clearly not the question surveyed.

    Investigative journalists at Popular Technology looked into precisely which papers were classified within Cook’s asserted 97 percent. The investigative journalists found Cook and his colleagues strikingly classified papers by such prominent, vigorous skeptics as Willie Soon, Craig Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nir Shaviv, Nils-Axel Morner and Alan Carlin as supporting the 97-percent consensus.

    Cook and his colleagues, for example, classified a peer-reviewed paper by scientist Craig Idso as explicitly supporting the ‘consensus’ position on global warming “without minimizing” the asserted severity of global warming. When Popular Technology asked Idso whether this was an accurate characterization of his paper, Idso responded, “That is not an accurate representation of my paper. The papers examined how the rise in atmospheric CO2 could be inducing a phase advance in the spring portion of the atmosphere's seasonal CO2 cycle. Other literature had previously claimed a measured advance was due to rising temperatures, but we showed that it was quite likely the rise in atmospheric CO2 itself was responsible for the lion's share of the change. It would be incorrect to claim that our paper was an endorsement of CO2-induced global warming."

    When Popular Technology asked physicist Nicola Scafetta whether Cook and his colleagues accurately classified one of his peer-reviewed papers as supporting the ‘consensus’ position, Scafetta similarly criticized the Skeptical Science classification.

    “Cook et al. (2013) is based on a straw man argument because it does not correctly define the IPCC AGW theory, which is NOT that human emissions have contributed 50%+ of the global warming since 1900 but that almost 90-100% of the observed global warming was induced by human emission,” Scafetta responded. “What my papers say is that the IPCC [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] view is erroneous because about 40-70% of the global warming observed from 1900 to 2000 was induced by the sun.”

    “What it is observed right now is utter dishonesty by the IPCC advocates. … They are gradually engaging into a metamorphosis process to save face. … And in this way they will get the credit that they do not merit, and continue in defaming critics like me that actually demonstrated such a fact since 2005/2006,” Scafetta added.

    Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv similarly objected to Cook and colleagues claiming he explicitly supported the ‘consensus’ position about human-induced global warming. Asked if Cook and colleagues accurately represented his paper, Shaviv responded, “Nope... it is not an accurate representation. The paper shows that if cosmic rays are included in empirical climate sensitivity analyses, then one finds that different time scales consistently give a low climate sensitivity. i.e., it supports the idea that cosmic rays affect the climate and that climate sensitivity is low. This means that part of the 20th century [warming] should be attributed to the increased solar activity and that 21st century warming under a business as usual scenario should be low (about 1°C).”

    “I couldn't write these things more explicitly in the paper because of the refereeing, however, you don't have to be a genius to reach these conclusions from the paper," Shaviv added.

    To manufacture their misleading asserted consensus, Cook and his colleagues also misclassified various papers as taking “no position” on human-caused global warming. When Cook and his colleagues determined a paper took no position on the issue, they simply pretended, for the purpose of their 97-percent claim, that the paper did not exist.

    Morner, a sea level scientist, told Popular Technology that Cook classifying one of his papers as “no position” was "Certainly not correct and certainly misleading. The paper is strongly against AGW [anthropogenic global warming], and documents its absence in the sea level observational facts. Also, it invalidates the mode of sea level handling by the IPCC."

    Soon, an astrophysicist, similarly objected to Cook classifying his paper as “no position.”

    "I am sure that this rating of no position on AGW by CO2 is nowhere accurate nor correct,” said Soon.

    “I hope my scientific views and conclusions are clear to anyone that will spend time reading our papers. Cook et al. (2013) is not the study to read if you want to find out about what we say and conclude in our own scientific works,” Soon emphasized.

    Viewing the Cook paper in the best possible light, Cook and colleagues can perhaps claim a small amount of wiggle room in their classifications because the explicit wording of the question they analyzed is simply whether humans have caused some global warming. By restricting the question to such a minimalist, largely irrelevant question in the global warming debate and then demanding an explicit, unsolicited refutation of the assertion in order to classify a paper as a ‘consensus’ contrarian, Cook and colleagues misleadingly induce people to believe 97 percent of publishing scientists believe in a global warming crisis when that is simply not the case.

    Misleading the public about consensus opinion regarding global warming, of course, is precisely what the Cook paper sought to accomplish. This is a tried and true ruse perfected by global warming alarmists. Global warming alarmists use their own biased, subjective judgment to misclassify published papers according to criteria that is largely irrelevant to the central issues in the global warming debate. Then, by carefully parsing the language of their survey questions and their published results, the alarmists encourage the media and fellow global warming alarmists to cite these biased, subjective, totally irrelevant surveys as conclusive evidence for the lie that nearly all scientists believe humans are creating a global warming crisis.

    These biased, misleading, and totally irrelevant “surveys” form the best “evidence” global warming alarmists can muster in the global warming debate. And this truly shows how embarrassingly feeble their alarmist theory really is.

  • bill von novak
    bill von novak Solar Expert Posts: 891 ✭✭✭✭
    edited July 2017 #60
    Solray said:
    Non partisan Patriotism, not partisan politics. :)
    You are right, I do not have the goals of redistributing the worlds wealth from the richest countries to the poorest ones, I would rather the poorest countries work to do better for themselves so the entire global community grows together rather than bringing the richest countries down to a common level with the poorest ones. All countries have ways of improving even if they lack natural resources because they have the most prized and valuable commodity in the human mind and the ideas it can produce.

    I am for improving the quality of life in the US and in the rest of the world by improving the quality of life in the poorest areas but not by lowering it in the wealthiest ones.

    Schools teach down to the slowest child's abilities and we now have the worst test scores in history as a result. 'No child left behind' sounds great until the scores come in. When I was in school you had to earn your right to get placed in the advanced classes and it was a goal worth attaining.
    Like I said, you have a lot of partisan political goals, so you are going to come to different conclusions.

    It is a sad commentary on how we view science today that political supporters discard science as soon as it disagrees with their political views.  We as a country used to base our decisions on science; that's how we defeated polio, got to the Moon, created the US power grid and the first nuclear reactors and weapons.  Today we base which science we "believe" on personal political views.  People decide that vaccines don't work, or climate change isn't real, because the president holds a similar view, rather than basing it on any sort of factual evidence.  They see denial of those parts of science as a necessary prerequisite to party loyalty.

    This was tried in the former USSR; Lysenkoism was the term used for a program that rejected any science that did not match the government's politically correct views.  To say that it didn't work would be an understatement.

    To get this back on topic, solar in the US is growing rapidly, and has passed the point of economic feasibility without subsidies.  The big challenges we are going to see in the next few decades are storage and control; with so much cheap solar available, the demand for solar storage (on both sides of the meter) is going to be large.  At Intersolar this year there were over a dozen companies offering storage solution, whereas last year there were about 3.

    The (political, also economic) question we might want to answer is - do we want the US to lead in this field, or should we pull back and let others take the lead?
  • Solray
    Solray Registered Users Posts: 246 ✭✭✭
    edited July 2017 #61
    Not partisan political views, you are mis categorizing it completely, nice try though. It sounds like you have a partisan political axe to grind here though.

    And, NO we do not want the US to lead this at all. We want every country to lead themselves and not look to the US for handouts any longer. Every country needs to develop the ability to lead themselves to prosperity and stop looking to the US for those things.

    As for solar, I don't see storage as the next big hurdle, I see the waste it produces as the main thing holding it back. If and when a clean production method is devised, then it can go forward without the huge detrimental environmental impact it currently has. Producing panels is bad for the environment.