New insights into global warming

Water is a huge untapped resource. A pumped hydro-electric storage plant can "store"" power when demand is lower by pumping the water into a storage area from which it can run through the turbines again at peak time.

And here is an interesting design, using the pressure differentials between the ocean floor and the surface. Could have "an efficiency of around 80%, comparable to conventional energy storage systems", and "A typically-sized system will be able to produce around 300 megawatts, for a time period of about 7-8 hours — enough to power about 200,000 British households."

And Lockheed Martin are using thermal differences in the ocean to power a power plant off southern China’s Hainan Island.

Thanks, flick. That was my understanding too – that electricity storage of any size is extremely difficult.

Actually, jess, I saw an article about trees not being able to use any more carbon dioxide recently too. Naturally, I just laughed at it. I'll see if I can find it again.

CC, sorry, I have done some research on this and significant and satisfactory large scale electricity storage, like fusion, is always 20 years away. The best that has been managed so far is one installation that can manage to store one days supply of electricity but effective storage would need to be able to store electricity for at least one month and better still three months, like gas storage facilities offshore in depleted gas fields.

One of the big disadvantages of electric cars is that their range is quite limited because of battery size, a fill of petrol or diesel, can take a car 500 miles and still leave plenty of room for lots of luggage in the back of the car, electric cars cannot do that and I know of no big heavy transport lorries running on batteries and they can travel many, many hundreds of miles on a fill of diesel.

Please believe me I too want emission free power that does not deplete world natural or geological resources, but this is not achievable in the next 15 years and probably much longer, so what do you do in the meanwhile. It is very admirable to do everything we can on the domestic front, and I have halved our domestic consumption of energy over the last ten years and will be cutting it further but domestic consumption is a relatively small proportion of total energy demand and even if we could live with regular power cuts, load shedding and maximum consumption rationing. If this was applied to commerce and industry it would destroy our economy and plunge us all into poverty.

All of us know what the policy of perfection is, what do we do until we reach it?

Thanks Jess, wouldn't do to have too many emissions!

deserving you continue to amuse. Trees "full up". Not quite up to standard of the wind turbines blowing colder air at Llandudno though.

Not a sausage about the lungs of the world? A lot from supposedly, knowledgeable people who favour the latest expert that they feel they should agree with. Who they don't like they disparage, although they are probably interpreting the same data but from another viewpoint.The so called experts cannot agree themselves, are we on GN likely to have the answer? We can throw a lot of information about, quote some unproven, and sometimes disproven figures. We are non the wiser(although some like to feel so).Think you that a multitude of reasons could account for the greenhouse effect, and that it is not even then the causation of apparent global warming? Cars produce CO2 as does burning fossil fuels as does cows. Trees, the lungs of the earth, are"full up" Like ourselves the older trees do not function as well as they did. Younger trees are not yet effective enough, or prolific enough to replace the "rape"of the forests that is taking place.The trees are finding it difficult to absorb the CO2, yet people witter on about all in sundry, rather than tackle a known major problem, the lungs of the earth have lost a major part of their capacity and it is getting worse every day.
Just another of many considerations.

ogm when they talk about "emissions" they generally mean carbon emissions.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4792474.stm

I listened to this today. She sounded knowledgable and reasonable.

When we were having some building work done at the school where I worked I asked if we could have vacuum lavatories or grey water ones installed. I was told it was too expensive. Same when I asked about replacing the aged and dying boiler with a greener type.

Flick I just don't believe you have never heard of storing electricity. Hardly a week goes by without yet another way of storing electricity being mentioned in the New Scientist. Research into alternative energy and storage is where the money should be going - not frackinhg or nuclear.

Jendurham Absolutely agree. All new homes should have either solar or heatpumps. And grey water tanks. Why don't they do this??? A total mystery. Sorry, have no time to explain about heat pumps except that they are sort of like refrigerators in reverse and they take residual heat from the ground or the air. Also from water: the National Trust have just had the water sort installed in the lake at Packwood house. (even when the water freezes there is still some heat to be got from the water underneath the ice. And, yes, it has to be stored, and ,yes, I do know that batteries use up precious resources - but there are other ways.

Why are there wind farms all over Europe (and elsewhere) if they don't do the job????? It is big business that builds them not eco warriers.

Yes but Flickety someone's got to have the power station in their back yard.
When I turn my head, I can see a wind turbine turning. If I go into the back garden I can see another one.
I can see about ten at Tow Law and another couple of windfarms if I go in another direction. So I could say that nobody outside the County of Durham should have any of our electricity unless they sign up for clean energy tariffs. In fact Ecotricity also import clean gas which I also sign up for.
In the 70s there was a district heating system where we lived. All the waste was burnt to produce gas. The system was closed down because North Sea Gas was cheaper. 40 years on, the district heating system seems to be coming back into vogue.
www.ukcec.org will probably discuss them.
By the way, I have never known all the wind turbines be stopped on the same day. It's usually just one for maintenance, even when the schools were closed because of the snow.

Just wondering, do leaks count as emissions?
When 'accidents' occur Chernobyl, Fukushima and, way back Windscale (now re-named Sellafield perhaps in the hope that we will forget there ever was a problem there) does the 'fall out' count too?

Jendurham I didn't say I wanted nuclear power. I said it was the only way to produce the base load of electricity we need on an emission free basis. Wind turbines may please you. Aesthetically they are pleasing but my post above describes the problems with wind power.

I simply put forward a scenario for producing entirely emission free power in this country. I put my scenario up so people could put forward alternative realistic technically possible alternatives ways of providing the steady baseload of power 24/7 that is essential to supply industry, hospitals and domestic consumers.

I think that people whom sign up for clean wind powertarriffs should receive just that - and when it is not being produced their power should be cut off. You would get very cold in winter.

I agree with you, Carbon. There are four areas round here where UKCoal is putting in for planning permission to opencast. In the 80s I used to collect money and food for the miners, but I object to opencast mining now. It's just a job for builders, the fewer the better. And it's a sticking plaster on the energy debate.
In the new house-building program there is no call for greener homes. I think all new homes should have photovoltaic rooftiles as a matter of course, and be well insulated as standard.
And Flickety, you are welcome to your nuclear power station. I do not want one near me. Every direction I leave my village, I pass wind turbines. I like them, and want more. I pay Ecotricity for my power so they will build more in suitable places. I live on the edge of the Durham Dales. Coal used to be plentiful. Now it's wind. Someone somewhere probably wants to blow up the Durham Dales in their fracking experiments. Fracking might be okay in areas of the US where they probably do have desolate places, but not in this country where we have less than an acre of land per head of population.
In yesterday's Independent there was an article about community energy, with communities owning, generating and saving energy for the benefit of all. Before he died my husband was looking into ground and air-source heatpumps, something that rarely gets a mention in the debate about energy.

Low carbon footprint. sustainability. not being wasteful. saving energy. eating less meat. holidaying in UK.
There are not enough resources on this planet to sustain the population we have never mind increase it. We have to find a better way of living, and that does not mean being deprived or going backwards - basically a different mindset. A Green economy would actually produce more jobs; it would be more labour intensive..........I think you know what I mean in any case Flick.

CC what lifestyle should we have and how should we attain it?

JO8 Did I ever say we should "maintain today's lifestyle" ?

JO8 Did I ever say we should "maintain today's lifestyle" ?

Carbon the number of climate deniers, even in the government is minute, some doubt whether climate change is entirely manmade, which is irrelevant - and after the latest UN report much of that doubt has been removed.

So nobody is in disagreement with you over the problems of global warning. However some of us do not believe that armegeddon is galloping up on us quite as fast as you believe and scientists working in the global warming field have reached widely varying conclusions of its effects so disagreeing with your alarmist forecasts do not mean denying that global warming is happening.

The question, which you keep avoiding, is what do we do about it in practical terms.

I will describe what I consider the best way to generate enough power to keep the country running and minimise CO2 emissions. The only reliable way of generating baseload electricity, that is the amount of power just less than annual minimum demand is by building nuclear power stations. I know of no other alternative, other than hydrocarbons. The future may well bring fusion and other forms of power generation but as things stand for the foreseeable future, nuclear is the only way forward.

We then have the problem of meeting the fluctuating demand between base load and actual demand. This varies from hour to hour, day to day, season to season. Part of this gap is filled by wind power, but wind power is uncontrollable, production can vary enormously from minute to minute, which causes grid controllers problems and could cause nationwide power downs and of course very cold weather is also very calm and as we know one cold day this February, UK wide, including offshore turbines, approximately 8,000Mw of installed wind capacity produced only 29Mw of power. Photovoltaics only produce power in daylight and much less in winter than they do in summer. So how do we reliably meet the demands for power from commerce, industry and domestic consumers if we do not use at least some hydrocarbons?

I have put my ideas. Please can we hear yours.

And a very deceptive front cover too.

Very fine maps in this months Nat Geog, showing the effects of a rise in sea levels.

Sorry to bang on about fusion. DH spent large part of working life on it.

So, if not fracking (and I don't like the sound of that although I am assured it is safe) where will we get the energy to maintain today's' lifestyle. (until fusion arrives)

JO8 Sorry I can't keep up but have quite a busy life. No I did not fly (and for the record I believe we shall have to ration flying hours).
Absolutely agree that turning light off is not going to solve it. In fact it is possible that saving money by reducing energy consumption could increase carbon footprints. For example if you spent the money save flying to Florida !!!
What to do about all this you ask? Well, to start with we don't want a government with ministers who are climate change deniers. That's crazy.
Spreading the word is important. Protesting in also important (note the government is currently trying to make petitions, like 38Degrees, illegal i.e. more curtailment of freedom). I write often to my MP. I've always belonged to environmental groups and only donate to them. The main thing is to keep the government and opposition on its toes. Only by worldwide actions and agreements between all countries and states can anything be achieved (if at all I know).
People just have to understand that they6 can't just carry on removing fossil fuels from the ground. If we are to survive a certain amount will have to be left in the grounds. That is the maths. I repeat that is the maths: it has been calculated over and over again that once we reach a certain temperature (average) then all sort of tipping points occur. Tipping points is a good word to learn and understand, its going to be really important in the future.
So, even if we use it up slowly, it will only delay the effect. It will still happen. And relying on carbon capture is a no no as there is no way we are going to capture enough/ or enough in time.
So that is the best reason for not fracking. Fracking just introduces more fuse of fossil fuel and once started they'll never be able to stop weill they?.......
excuse mistakes I am writring off the top of my head and have no time to che it over. lunchtime

I am not worrying. I save my worrying for things I can do something about. I trust the younger generations of scientists to keep the world going after I am gone.