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Unfortunately, the messages in our Suggestion Box were a casualty of our move to a faster server. Please post more! We may not respond to every suggestion, but we read them all and a number of our posts were inspired by your ideas.
Please read this email.
As we all know there is an overwhelming concern for the earth the warming that is going on presently.
I write this as careful as possible to insure that you read it through.
Thinking of the earth and it’s outer crust and the heat that is generated inside the core I can not help but wonder how the heat remains within the crust. Obviously in the early stages of the earths beginning there were explosions and gas that came from within the earth. As plates struggled to be on top and earthquakes were an everyday event the earth was growing. Billions of years passed with flooding and the earths disfigurement and a calm fell over the world. Now years later the earth has been warming.
If you will consider, oil, sludge and coal as a retardant to the heat from the center of the earth you may start to see a trend. Think of the oil as radiator fluid cooling the outreach of the heat from within. Now think of the vast oil reserves in Alaska, the ice that is melting the icecaps, changing the weather patterns and being, my belief, global warming.
As we deplete our oil researves we will see more heating, but not from above…but from below
Best Regards,
Greg W. Andress
Mineral Leasing / Seismic QC .
Home:
333 Denman Cove
Auburn, New York ♦ 13021
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Email: TeamAndress1@gmail.com
The “Greatest” gift to give is Forgiveness
Is this a space for ideas or a space to comment on the above piece about heating from inside Earth? I wish it were clearer as it makes me hesitate.
But not to the point of not writing!
I have done an internal Search to see what has been written, if anything, in this Blog about nuclear energy. It drew a blank.
As an organization that is a self-appointed opinion-maker (and that is okay but it is always a good idea to let people know this rather than assume superiority of quality of opinion) I would like to know where Env Defense stands on the important question of electricity from nuclear reactors – and how that stand supports, or detracts from, or is neutral on the question of an effective energy policy for both delivering what people want and saving the Earth Community.
Wow, that was a long sentence but it just about works!
I have strong views in favor, I should say at the outset, which means that I am now especially interested in how the Env Orgs are performing as opinion-leaders, & as political players with some power to halt or hasten clean carbon-free energy from nuclear physics.
Seems nothing has changed since you wrote this in 2008… EDF still ignores the nuclear issue.
We haven’t talked about nuclear power in the blog, but here’s a Q&A from the main EDF site:
http://www.edf.org/article.cfm?contentid=4470
Corn as biofuel mess….is this causing more warming because of crop management (cutting down trees to plant corn, destroying rainforests to grow corn and other crops for fuel, etc)?
Here’s a very good article from Natural News regarding this and other planetary problems:
Among other things, he says:
“I am an advocate of the idea that Mother Nature needs to be granted legal standing. I believe that humans do not automatically “own” nature, and that we cannot simply cut down forests, bulldoze mountainsides, fish the oceans, build dams and engage in other highly disruptive activities without first getting permission and paying royalties to a global Mother Nature Authority that stands up for the rights of the planet.”
Very good read, even though it’s kind of scary:
http://www.naturalnews.com/023091.html
With rising food prices, biofuels are taking a big hit in the media as a primary contributor. Unfortunately all biofuels are being lumped together as problematic but it seems to me that corn based ethanol is the biggest problem, while biodieselfrom used vegetable oil and soybeans is harder to implicate. As prices for rice and other stapes are rising too, is there good data to say that biofuels are really causing the problem? I would love to see an article addressing the available data on this topic.
We have a post on biofuel from corn in the works.
I would be interested in someone creating a worldwide surface temperature graph for the past 100 or so years, TAKING OUT LaNina and ElNino ocean temperature effects. Is there such a chart available?
You guys have a great blog here. I’m with the Brookings Institution, and we just released a report about carbon footprint in cities around the U.S. I’d be interested to see what your take is on the report. It can be found here:
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2008/05_carbon_footprint_sarzynski.aspx
An unparalleled opportunity exists to set not just the US but whole world on a new course of greater significance than the exploration of space. This opportunity is presented by recent technological developments. One was just announced.
• Livermore National Labs has demonstrated a Prius, converted to run on hydrogen, got the equivalent of 65 miles per gallon of gasoline at the energy conversion rate 3 times better than gasoline by weight. The car ran 650 miles (1000 km) on a tank full of hydrogen. {See: https://www.llnl.gov/str/June07/Aceves.html. }
• Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique, CEA, in France has a time line to demonstrate large scale hydrogen production by 2012, not 2052. A closed circuit process requires water in and produces hydrogen and oxygen out. The oxygen can be released to the atmosphere rather than present energy sources that are a one way street of oxygen in and carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere. Vehicles burning hydrogen as a fuel consume the oxygen in a closed cycle and release water to the atmosphere. The CEA process uses a fixed amount of two catalysts that are continuously recycled and do not require replenishment and are not released to the atmosphere. {Google search all: “Massive production of hydrogen process developed at CEA”}
• France already produces 80% of its energy from breeder reactors that convert all of the uranium 238 and 235 to low atomic weight elements. The short radioactive half life waste does not require the large dumps of 100,000 year half live waste that were required by the first generation of U235 fission reactors which gave rise to the justifiable political opposition to them. France has standardized the breeder reactor design so that staffs are not required to learn a diverse range of competing nuclear technologies inviting the operator error that caused Chernoble. Reactors of this type can supply all of the world’s energy needs for the indefinite future with little dangerous waste. {My précis of a seminar given by Jasmina L. Vuijic, Department Chair, Nuclear Engineering, UC Berkeley.} I add: This will allow time to develop alternate solar power sources such as the algae production of hydrogen or gasoline. If we wait for them it will be too late.
Robert Innes
rinnes@mcn.org
I would like comments on the accuracy of this article about Antartic ice I ran across today (July 2). It quotes in part Michael Oppenheimer of Environmental Defense Fund. Here’s the link to the story and text of the story:
http://world-360.blogspot.com/2008/07/answers-to-sea-level-rise.html
July 2, 2008:
Answers to sea level rise
Scientists and others who work in Antarctica call it “The Ice.”
As you fly here from New Zealand the immensity of the ice is overwhelming. For the last two hours of the eight-hour trip, practically the only thing visible out the airplane window is ice. Only a few bare mountain peaks hint that Antarctica is made of anything but ice.
Imagine the 48 states and maybe half of Mexico covered with ice and you have Antarctica.
It is a continent of about 5.4 million square miles, which makes it about one and a half times as large as the USA’s 48 contiguous states.
Ice, averaging 1.6 miles deep, covers 97.6 percent of Antarctica, giving it 90 percent of the world’s ice and 70 percent of all of the globe’s fresh water – in the form of ice.
If all of this ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise by about 200 feet.
Fortunately, even the most drastic scientific scenarios for global warming don’t envision Antarctica warming enough to directly melt all of this ice for at least hundreds of years, if ever.
In fact, one of the first effects of a warmer climate could be more snow for Antarctica, which would more than make up for melting ice. This would happen because warm air carries more water vapor to turn into snow.
Still, we can’t be sure all of Antarctica’s ice is going to stay frozen as the world’s climate warms, whether naturally or because of gasses humans are adding to the atmosphere.
While straightforward melting isn’t going to send water from Antarctica’s ice washing through the streets of New York City and London, nature may have other ways of putting water from some of the ice into the world’s oceans.
The weak spot could be the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. But even under the worst scenario with much likelihood of happening, ocean-front property owners won’t have to worry about water from Antarctica any time soon.
Scores of scientists, technicians, and others are now living in tents and huts on that part of the ice, trying to determine just how much a threat it is to the world’s coastal areas. Antarctica’s “summer” from November into February is the research season on The Ice.
The Transantarctic Mountains separate the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from the much larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The West Antarctic sheet covers the part of Antarctica south of the Pacific Ocean inland to the mountains and contains about 11 percent of the ice that sits on the continent.
Water from a melted West Antarctic sheet could push global sea levels as much as 20 feet higher than they would otherwise be.
Scientists say the West Antarctic sheet is more likely to collapse than the large East Antarctic sheet because its bottom is mostly below sea level. East Antarctica’s ice is mostly grounded above sea level.
Ice moves slowly
Ice moves slowly – a few feet a year – toward the edges of Antarctica much in the way pancake batter spreads out as you pour it on a griddle. Much of the West Antarctic sheet’s ice moves onto the Ross and Ronne ice shelves, which are floating on the ocean. These range from around 4,000 feet thick where they are connected to the ice sheet to around 600 feet thick at the ocean end. The Ross Ice Shelf stretches about 450 miles from the ice sheet to the ocean and is about 600 miles wide. The Ronne Ice Shelf is a little smaller.
If these shelves melted, as they could in a warmer world, ocean water would be able to lap directly at the bottom of the ice sheet, undermining it and allowing large chunks of ice to fall into the sea to melt.
The shelves could melt while the main ice sheet stays frozen solid because the are in warmer parts of Antarctica and because sea water eats at them from the bottom as well as the edges.
Icy rivers
Many scientists feel the key to figuring out how likely the West Antarctic sheet is to collapse any time in the next 200 years lies in the rivers of ice called “ice streams.” Instead of moving toward the sea like one huge glacier, West Antarctica’s ice moves in streams; rivers of ice running between banks of ice.
“Since the ice is coming out in streams, it moves much faster and can respond more quickly. This might also give it the capability to go into a collapse,” says Robert Bindschadler of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., one of the scientists working in Antarctica this month.
Bindschadler and those working with him are placing Global Positing System receivers, which use satellites to determine location and elevation within inches, on the ice. Data from these instruments will show details of ice stream movement.
Another group headed by Barclay Kamb of the California Institute of Technology, is using hot water to drill to the bottom of the ice near the edge of one of the ice streams.
They will learn more about the ground up rock and water that seems to make it easier for the ice to slide over the underlying rock. Heat from the Earth below warms the bottom of the ice sheets to around 30 degrees Fahrenheit, enough to melt ice that’s under great pressure there.
While the hot water drills blast a hole to the bottom of the ice in a day or so, other researchers are using special drill bits to pull up cores of ice that span from the top to the bottom of the ice sheet. This ice began as snow that fell on Antarctica thousands of years ago. Its chemical makeup and the dust and other materials in it have stories to tell about past climates, which could shed light on the future of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Right now scientists aren’t sure whether the total amount of Antarctic ice is increasing or decreasing, but either way, it’s close to being in balance. Icebergs, sometimes huge icebergs, are always breaking off, or “calving” from, the ice shelves. At the same time, snow falling on Antarctica is replacing the ice that floats away in the icebergs.
Those who study the West Antarctic Ice Sheet have many opinions about what it’s likely to do.
But, “one outcome that may be put aside for the moment, because no convincing model of it has been presented, is a sudden collapse that causes a level rise in the coming century,” says Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defense Fund.
Oppenheimer is not among the scientists working on The Ice, but wrote an article for the journal “Nature” last May summing up the state of West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
No matter what happens, he says, “it would take at least several hundred years for the ice to melt. It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.”
Rising water
About the worst scenario those who study the ice see is for a warmer climate to cause the Ross Ice Shelf to quickly grow thinner and disintegrate. Without it, the Ice Sheet begins collapsing and melting ice causes global sea levels to rise as much as 20 feet in 250 to 400 years.
Another possibility is that the ice sheet is inherently stable. Under this scenario, the over-the-ice streams slow down, which reduces the amount of ice going into the ocean. The extra snow falling on Antarctica from warmer air more than makes up for the melting ice and actually slows sea level rise.
Oppenheimer thinks the most likely scenario is for melting to gradually increase during the coming century with the Ross Ice Shelf finally gone in about 200 years. During this time the Antarctic contributes up to seven or so inches a century to global sea-level increase as warmer air continues adding more ice to Antarctica.
But, other effects including the expansion of ocean water as it warms up, increase sea levels by much more. With the Ross Ice Shelf gone, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet begins collapsing, which takes another 500 to 700 years. During this period, melting Antarctic ice adds around 20 to 50 inches a century to global sea levels.
“My son is six months old, Oppenheimer says. “Assuming he has children when he’s 30, and his children live 75 to 80 years, my grandchildren will be here” when a melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could begin affecting the world. “The grandchildren of people living today will be affected. We have an obligation to them.”
We’ve posted a lot about what’s happening in the Arctic and Antarctic. You can find the posts here:
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/category/science/arctic-antarctic/
I am just a medical doctor so please bear with me. It seems to me that ALL of the processes that convert other forms of energy into heat might be of relevance. I acknowledge the greenhouse effect and the issue of CO2 but my perspective is this: The sun has been investing energy in our planet for so many years, causing the formation of chemical deposits like fossil fuels and applying some direct radiant heat. There are other materials in our world that predated the formation of the solar system like nuclear fuels. A steady state was reached when the radiant energy leaving us was equal to the radiant energy arriving minus what was being stored. Now, we are very rapidly unleashing these long-term stores and converting them into heat over a much shorter period of time. Nuclear fuel does the same thing! Here’s the question: What is the relative importance of heat producton verses the impairment of shedding heat from our world? Are we creating too much heat from all sources?
Could some people like “kenzrw” please limit their comments so we don’t have to read such long opinions, and/or have articles rewritten here? We could use links to articles, if we choose. Isn’t this blog for conversation and questions?
Like some people above, I want to know more about why the US isn’t doing nuclear. The French have used our own US technology better than we do to create electricity; and they funnel their nuclear waste under farm fields to warm the earth so the plants think it’s summer all year round and increase the yield. Can’t we do that in Iowa and some of our northern states? But increase corn only for food, not biofuel.
I am also interested in knowing what is blocking US farmers from growing sugar for sugar ethanol, which burns 7 times higher energy than corn, is cheaper to process, and is not so necessary for food. Brazil is sitting pretty, except that they are filling the corn/soybean void created by our feckless corn ethanol boondoggle. How could we have gone so wrong, just because corn was there? Please help me understand.
Cancel the Farm Bill, save poor farmers here and abroad, save our money. Thanks. Terry
Why is everyone talking 60 to 70 years out? Isn’t the current thinking that if we don’t change our fossil fuel and carbon emission habits in 7 years, the oceans will have overflowed onto low lands by 2037? Please explain so we can all get on the same page. Thanks. Terry
To answer Stephen952, heat from ancient sources such as nuclear or fossil once released does not hang around in the form of heat but rapidly radiates to outer space. This is true even if it is trapped under a CO2 blanket in the atmosphere. However, the temperature under the blanket can get very high before a balance is struck. On Venus it melts lead, but the relaxation time is only days to months not eons. Even the trapping of latent heat in polar ice has a relaxation time of about a month. A small increase in temperature causes an enormous increase in radiation because it is a fourth power radiation law.
We have only three sources of energy, 1. fossil fuel; 2. solar which includes biomass, wind, hydroelectric, etc; 3. nuclear. Fossil fuel including coal combustion is a one way street that destroys natural atmospheric oxygen converting it to CO2. It also destroys a valuable resource for lubricants and other petrochemicals. Obviating these with breeder nuclear is an attractive alternative because they produce much less objectionable waste than the first generation U235 reactors. The French get 80% of their electricity this way and are on a fast track to manufacture hydrogen from nuclear heat which returns oxygen to the atmosphere. The burning of hydrogen releases water to the atmosphere which is reused to make more hydrogen. But even uranium will not last forever but could be a stopgap to put and end to fossil fuel burning while a final solar solution is sought.
terry44 wrote:
>I am also interested in knowing what is blocking US farmers from growing sugar for sugar ethanol, which burns 7 times higher energy than corn, is cheaper to process, and is not so necessary for food.
I’d have to ask one of our agriculture experts to be sure, but I think it’s because corn is heavily subsidized (Farm Bill) in a way that sugar is not. It’s more profitable for farmers to grow corn.
A crop that’s better than either sugar or corn for fuel is algae. We did a post on this:
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2008/05/08/algae_biodiesel/
terry44, I realize that my post on Antarctic was too long and I would have edited it the next day if I knew how. It looked even longer since the columns on this blog are narrow. Next time I’ll do the link and short summary only.
I agree with your statement:
“Why is everyone talking 60 to 70 years out? Isn’t the current thinking that if we don’t change our fossil fuel and carbon emission habits in 7 years, the oceans will have overflowed onto low lands by 2037? Please explain so we can all get on the same page. Thanks.” I too would like to be on the same page.
The University of Illinois UC’s real-time Arctic Sea Ice maps show that the Arctic sea ice “may not” retreat as much as it did in 2007 since the July 27, 2008 sea ice is greater than it was last year on that date. This link lets you compare Arctic Sea ice extent on a day by day basis back to 1979.
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=07&fd=27&fy=2007&sm=07&sd=27&sy=2008
I’d like to hear EDF’s take on this since there was a recent trip to the Arctic by the head of Environmental Defense (his report didn’t mention the sea ice, or at least I didn’t see it). I know the long-term warming will continue but this shows me that winds and ocean circulation can also play a major roll in sea ice extent, not just man-made warming.
Great article today about the future of biofuels and using specifically engineered crops, other than corn. This is on the Computer News site (CNET.com):
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10005414-54.html?tag=nl.e433
Very positive outlook.
Three Big Things We Should Do Now to Slow Global Warming
Amidst all the complexity of international climate change negotiations, it is easy to lose sight of actions we can take now, using proven technologies. Such “immediate mitigation” is essential if we are to avoid irreversible tipping points for abrupt climate change. There are three very promising ways of meeting the need for speed.
1. Black Carbon
Black carbon, the light absorbing matter in soot, warms the atmosphere by absorbing solar radiation and releasing it as heat. It also accelerates the melting of snow and ice by reducing their ‘albedo’ (the ability to reflect light). This is most dramatically demonstrated by the contribution which black carbon is making to the disintegration of Arctic sea-ice, which in turn threatens to accelerate feedback mechanisms that will speed disintegration of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Of equal importance is the impact black carbon has on the melting snowpacks and glaciers in the Himalayas and the threats this poses to fresh water supplies and therefore food security in much of Asia. We know how to reduce black carbon, and doing so can produce an immediate delay in global warming. The developed world has reduced black carbon emissions by a factor of five since the 1950s. Providing this technology to the developing world could mitigate climate change and prevent millions of deaths each year from air pollution.
2. Bio-Char
Progress can be made in the countryside as well as in the cities of the developing world. Bio-char (sequestering carbon in the soil) is an ancient technology with a modern future. Pre-Columbian Amazonian Indians called it “Terra Preta de Indio” and used it to enhance productivity of their soil. They made it by smouldering their waste. Its modern equivalent is being developed using ‘pyrolysis’ in relatively low-tech kilns in many countries, including by the Kansai Sustainability Network in Japan since 2003. Switching from slash-and-burn to slash-and-char can reduce 12% of annual carbon emissions caused by land use changes, which is 2% of the world’s total annual emissions. Switching to slash-and-char also reduces black carbon. When bio-char is combined with biofuel production, it can become a carbon negative process that draws down atmospheric concentrations of CO2.
3. Banks of CFCs & HCFCs in Old Products and Equipment
We urgently need to address the CFCs and HCFCs that are being released from old products and equipment at end-of-life—an estimated 7.4 billion tons of CO2 equivalent by 2015. This is a task for the Montreal Protocol similar to its successful agreement in 2007 to accelerate the HCFC phase-out, which is providing climate mitigation of 16 billion tons of CO2 equivalent through 2040. It’s now or never for eliminating these “perishable” emissions.
It doesn’t matter whether global warming is man made or just a cycle in the earth’s history …. it is happening. Between solar processes or natural earth processes such as volcanoes and the ever present forest fires which will be argued to have occurances whether or not mankind were present. It still just doesn’t matter how it is happening, it is.
FACT: “Atmospheric levels of CO2 are determined by how much coal, natural gas and oil we burn and how many trees we cut down, as well as by natural processes like plant growth. Atmospheric levels of water vapor, on the other hand, cannot be directly controlled by people; rather, they are determined by temperatures. The warmer the atmosphere, the more water vapor it can hold. As a result, water vapor is part of an amplifying effect. Greenhouse gases like CO2 warm the air, which in turn adds to the stock of water vapor, which in turn traps more heat and accelerates warming.”
http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1011
We have gone past the point of no return unless we can build improvements to assist in reflecting light away from the earth.
First you have to understand how long the earth has been storing up the fossil fuels. The coal, oil and natural gas that we are using now are products of the earth converting plants and animals into their present forms over (often) millions of years. They have been stored now for millions of years without being used until now. By being used now, we are converting these fuels from stored carbon, into released carbon. Thus allowing this released carbon to act as a greenhouse effect gas again.
Since we are talking about a situation where the Earth once had a lot of stored carbon and now that stored carbon is disappearing at a tremendous rate (and will continue into the future) We can be truthful in saying that there is a definite trend, and relationship in the increase of greenhouse gasses. We can also say that these greenhouse gasses would not have been released without the intervention of man. Logically therefore we can say that global warming gasses have been released and any global warming increases are directly attributed to mankind’s releasing them.
The damage done by increased greenhouse emissions has already taken its toll. This is evident by the melting of polar ice and glaciers across the globe. Some will say that there is no such thing as global warming, because there is in their opinion very little change in the average global temperature. However when you take into account the fact that there is less ice, and snow, because of the melting of polar ice and glaciers across the globe. That melted ice, snow and glaciers across the globe will in themselves temporarily lower the overall ocean temperatures untill they all melt. Thereby lowering the average temperatures on the earth. So if you account for that, the temperature can be proven to be increasing.
We cannot get the world back the way it was, even as of fifty years ago, much less stop the damage that will still occur in the future. Sure we could try to stop all industry that will cause pollution, but at what cost. Without industry we could not sustain the present world population. Giving up industry and sacrificing billions of people on this planet in the process, is not a viable solution (even trying to merely lower greenhouse emissions is at best a temporary solution).
The biggest problem we have now is not just the fact that we have more greenhouse gasses trapping heat in, but we are getting less and less sunlight being reflected out from the planet. As the snow cover melts from more and more of the planets surface, the sunlight heats up more parts of the earth that once reflected light back out. It is like a dog chasing its tail (until it gets dizzy and falls from exhaustion). As global warming just keeps building on itself till the ecological balance fails, and this planet will no longer sustain the teeming human populations.
Greenhouse effect cure (there are no real cures but this may help till we can find one). First I want to point out that there are no real, viable short term, or easy methods of curing our Global warming woes. The damage to the environment has already been done and is, for all intent and purposes, basically irreversible. It is likely, however, that any type of plan to get rid of Global warming, will require some type of dramatic ecological compromises.
Some will say that all we need to do is give up industry on the planet and the world will eventually go back to the way it was. I say it is too late for that solution (as a short term solution anyway).
My plan, however, will require the use of old tires and recycled plastics. Of course it will require some engineering feats also, and a few ecological compromises. The benefits of using these wasted products will far outweigh the compromises required.
My idea is to build large floating islands (white on top, to reflect sunlight back out of our planet) made from used tires (filled with co2) and recycled plastics. Yes there are engineering and ecological problems, but everyone has to admit there are worse problems in our current situation. So the only feasible solution is to build a bunch of artificial reflection “islands” across the planet.
We can also try to get more people to use reflecting surfaces on buildings (which will be as difficult to do, as no one likes to have to do things exactly the same as everyone else).
There will be other benefits realized, once we build enough of these islands. One of the problems associated with the increased temperatures we are experiencing is the possibility of increased hurricane intensity and frequency. Having enough of these floating islands in strategic points in the oceans will help to alleviate this problem also. It is a well known fact that hurricanes form in areas of the ocean where the temperature rises above approximately 80 degrees Fahrenheit. If we can keep those areas below that temperature (by reflecting sunlight away), we can prevent the formation of hurricanes. Without these floating islands, hurricanes will probably continue to increase in intensity and frequency…
We need a solution to deal with our Global warming woes, and we need it now. Even if this is a difficult path to follow, it will pay off in the future. The overall problems I see for Greenhouse effect is that we can go green all we want, but Global warming and our constant desire to be comfortable, will eventually undermine any efforts we may do. Unless we can get rid of some of the excess heat in this world, we will always be under the eventual threat of a thermal overheating demise.
In order to defeat threats to our nation America must to eliminate our reliance on foreign oil by building an American energy infrastructure. When the United States no longer needs to import oil our rationale for ensuring stability in oil rich countries changes. The United Sates imports over 20 million barrels of oil per day, which is more than any other nation, and emerging markets from countries such as India and China will continue to compete with us for this limited resource. Other than defeating terrorism, the United States Government is in Iraq for stability of the Middle East so that the world and America can continue to meet its oil consumption demands. Since 2001, the United States has been fighting the war on terror using boots on the ground as the main option. We need to develop an economic option. Instead of military as the main option, the U.S. must address future threats economically. In order to meet this goal a significant paradigm change needs to take place by shifting resources in our national budget. Building an energy infrastructure will take years, cost an enormous amount of money, and require a change to our national security strategy, but the United States is currently at the tip of the spear with our technological innovations. Once the U.S. creates a demand for energy infrastructure, the alternative energy market will explode creating a new industry, and other countries will follow our lead. T. Boone Pickens has the right formula, but we need to energize our government. Until the United States becomes energy independent, oil rich countries will continue to be able to use oil as a bargaining chip challenging the freedoms our forefathers have fought and died for.
The United States devours more oil than any other country in the world. Oil is embedded and woven in every aspect of our economy. Nearly everything in our lives is made is made from oil. We use oil is in the production of plastic products, chemicals, hygiene products, clothing, and fuel to transport our products and us. To put this in perspective, the United Sates consumes about 20 of the 78 million barrels produced per day by the nations of the World. Of the 20 million barrels we use per day, American imports 13.15 million barrels per day, which accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. consumption or over 700 billion dollars per year. The problem with importing that much oil is a majority of our oil is imported from counties that we don’t always politically agree with. Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico in order, are the top three providers of oil to the United States and cause no issues. However, the next 12 importers of oil we have to depend on and are in order are as follows: Venezuela, Nigeria, Iraq, Angola, Brazil, Algeria, Russia, Kuwait, Ecuador, Colombia, Chad and Libya. These countries are not always politically stable, and at times are at odds with the national interest of the United States. The supply and demand of oil is very tight with no supply left unsold. The world consumes over 80 million barrels of oil and the world extracts over 80 million barrels from the Earth per day. Therefore, when the U.S. is at odds with a nation that produces and exports oil, the world’s oil markets are affected, and national security options are in jeopardy. If we upset oil rich countries, they can refuse to ship to us and instead ship to another country in need. Also when challenged our options are limited. Not having to import oil gives us options and more flexibility to push issues like Iran not developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. may not import any of Iran’s 1.67 million barrels it produces per day, but our political conflicts with the country can directly influence the price of oil in world markets thus negatively affecting our economy. Iran is an example of a country that uses oil as a bargaining chip. Iran can pick and choose the places, and the issues, over which to make the stand. They are eight in the world on exporting oil and can stop production driving the price of oil higher in the commodities market. To amplify their influence further on the world market, they can make such threats as shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which up to 40 percent of the world’s oil passes. Iran has made numerous threats to shut down traffic in the strait if attacked.
The United States dependence on foreign oil will continue to make it economically vulnerable as the demand in consumption of oil from emerging markets continues to grow. Of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) both India and China continue to consume, more oil per day which in return drives the price of oil higher as the United States also competes for this finite resource. China and India’s demand for oil has already strained commodity oil supplies and fuelled market speculation. In 2007, both China and India imported 5.20 million barrels of oil per day, and their demand will continue as their economies grow. In August 2008, China met with Iraq to sign a $1.2 Billion Oil Service Deal. Although they have not finalized the deal, this is another example of China continuing to complete with America for oil imports. As we reduce our oil imports, world oil markets are not affected, because India and China will buy the oil we do not import. If we don’t end our oil imports, the price of oil will continue to rise, and we will continue to buy oil from countries that don’t share our national interest.
The U.S. government initially attacked Afghanistan to eliminate an enemy who attacked us. Due to the accusation of having weapons of mass destruction, America invaded Iraq. Currently we are in both countries ensuring stability to the Middle East for the free flow of oil. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan required major shifts in its national resources from the military to the energy department to build an energy infrastructure. Since 2001, the United States has spent over 870 billion dollars in fighting the war on terror. According to The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, in 2004 the U.S. government spent 94 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan and the figured more than doubled by 2008 with the U.S. government spending more than 195 billion. We have been fighting the war on terror with boots on the ground as the only option diverting resources from other national departments to the military. We need to transform economically how we have been fighting the war by establishing an economic option. Just as in the American Civil war, a reason the Union Army won was because the Union Army out produced Confederate Forces. A reason we won WWII was due to our strong economy and ability to mass-produce military supplies for the greatest generation. A reason, America won the Cold War against USSR was also due to economics. We need to fight the war against terror on all fronts, and we have been neglecting what we can do domestically. Establishing an energy infrastructure will take time, but once free of oil imports we have greater flexibility to influence the world with our democratic ideals.
American companies have always been at or near the forefront in technological advances, especially in computers, medical, aerospace, and military equipment. The U.S. drives the economic train of the world and is a prime leader in its ability to develop new ideals. We lead the world with technological innovations, and where we go others will follow. I propose we continue to lead the world by developing an American energy infrastructure similar to the New Deal, developed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. This was a plan that redirected our nation from a deep depression by building infrastructure and putting Americans back to work. On 9 March 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt called a special session of Congress. He told the members that direct recruiting by the Government itself could only solve unemployment. For the next three months, Roosevelt proposed, and Congress passed, a series of important bills that dealt with the problem of unemployment. The special session of Congress became known as the Hundred Days and provided the basis for Roosevelt’s New Deal. The government employed millions of people to carry out a range of different tasks. These projects included the Works Projects Administration (WPA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the National Youth Administration (NYA), Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the Public Works Administration (PWA). The Department of Energy needs to take the lead establishing systems and enticing industries to build an infrastructure that will allow us to become free of importing oil. Much like FDR’s New Plan, the U.S. needs to build an energy infrastructure that will make us free from imported oil. I define this infrastructure by undertaking such projects as building massive solar energy and wind farms. We need to invest in technologies with industries to cheaply mass produce fuel cell and battery powered vehicles. The government needs to give incentives to car companies that can bring to market vehicles that need little or no petroleum-based fuel. We need to take the lead in developing the technology to effectively extract oil from algae. We need to research and develop solar technology that is just a cheap and efficient as burning fossil fuel. The U.S. should allure big American oil companies to divert oil profits to the next generation of energy. In order for the United States to continue influencing the world with its political ideologies of free enterprise and democracy, we need to stay ahead of the world by making a transformational change in developing an economy free of imported oil.
T. Boone Pickens has the right formula, but his efforts alone are not enough. According to him in an article from USA Today in July 2008, he states, “We’re paying $700 billion a year for foreign oil. It’s breaking us as a nation, and I want to elevate that question to the presidential debate, to make it the No. 1 issue of the campaign this year. Nixon said in 1970 that we were importing 20% of our oil and that by 1980 it would be 0%. That didn’t happen,” Pickens says. “It went to 42% in 1991 with the Gulf War. It’s just under 70% now. Where do you think we’re going to be in 10 years when our economy is busted and we’re importing 80% of our oil? “This is not about Republicans vs. Democrats,” Pickens says. “This is about saving our country from the ruination of spending $700 billion a year on oil imports. Ninety days after the oil hits our shores, it’s all burned up, and we’ve got nothing to show for it. But they (foreign oil producers) still have our money. It’s killing our economy. “Finding solutions to other major issues, including health care, are important, he concedes. But “If you don’t solve the energy problem, it’s going to break us before we even get to solving health care and some of these other important issues.” And it has to be done with the same sense of urgency that President Eisenhower had when he pushed the rapid development of the interstate highway system during the Cold War.” In the Texas Panhandle, Pickens is building the world’s largest wind farm. So far, he has spent $2 billion on the project, including a record purchase of nearly 700 wind turbines. He expects to spend up to $10 billion on the project and to begin generating electricity in 2011.
Developing an American Energy infrastructure is not going to be cheap and could cost easily cost more than a trillion dollars, but we have spent close to that amount in fighting the war on terror. Our government needs to stop using the military only option and make us free from the bondage of oil imports. We need a transformational change on how we have been defending our nation from the War on Terror by building, developing and improving technologies in the alternative energy industry and becoming free of oil imports. Until we end our reliance of imported oil, the U.S. will continue to compete for oil with growing emerging markets, and as a result, the cost of oil will continue to rise. Until we make a paradigm shift on importing oil, we will continue struggle will rogue regimes that have large oil deposits. The efforts of T. Boone Pickens is not enough, our government needs to take the lead and give America a “New Deal” that establishing an energy infrastructure that allows us to be free of imported oil. I know this shift cannot happen overnight, but building an energy infrastructure needs to be addressed in our National Security. Our government needs to take the lead with a “New Deal” and the economic aspect of making our country free of the need to import oil. Oil is a limited resource and emerging markets will continue to compete with our economy for oil thus driving the price higher and destabilizing our economy.
thank you
MAJ Gary D. Fitts
US Army
I created an association in 1999 . The name is: “Les biefs du Pilat”
We promote what i call the Globale Water Resource Management
First i did that to give solutions about the effect of global warming on the water cycle modification.
In few words , with the wter of floods i fight the dryness.
Some people and my friends thought i am crazy to think i can change the world….
After ten years i made one more step in the way of the relation between the water and climat.
Until now all the world is ready to admit that the co2 is the main factor of climate change.
And every people think that the water cycle modifications come form climate change too.
Every body are wrong.
The human activities modify directly the water cycle and the consequences are the climate change .
If the co 2 increase it come from the decreasing of biomass and the co2 is no more recycled.
If we have globale warming it come from déserts enlargments and increasing of drylands.
Don’t wurry there is a solution .
We can water the drylands of the earth .
I already start to do it, and it works…..
Ok for now i have to convice all the scientists , politics of the planet that is is urgent to do it and that they could win more monney that saling sawing machine to saw the branch were they are sitting.
Les biefs du Pilat
Interesting article October 20 in the Washington Post on how the much lower fuel prices recently may effect the push to alternative fuels. A good read. Any comments?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/19/AR2008101902073.html?wpisrc=newsletter
I spent a couple of hours reading the IPCC AR4 report, mainly the FAQ and Summary for Policymakers. One thing I found interesting and would like an answer to is this:
SUMMARY FOR POLICYMAKERS – PAGE 9
Some aspects of climate have not been observed to
change. {3.2, 3.8, 4.4, 5.3}
I searched Section 3.2 and 3.8, but could not find anything saying what aspects of climate have NOT changed. Anyone know what these unchanged aspects are?
A higher federal gas tax would bring many benefits. Each penny increase in the tax brings 1.4 billion dollars in revenue. The higher the price of gas the more people buy more fuel efficient cars which are generally smaller (more smaller cars means less dangerous accidents). People would drive less which means more room on the road and less air pollution. The less gas we buy the less money goes to our enemies. When gas got over $3.50 a gallon I saw a lot more articles in the newspapers about entrepeneurs trying to develop more effricient or better batteries, wind generators, photovoltaic cells, etc. Money is a great motivator in this country and your idea of a price floor for gas is a great stimulus. A big government project to get us out of the energy crisis is a horibble idea.
I have suggested in several Green Room blog comments and in direct e-mails to over a dozen ED staffers that the organic and sewage waste messes are getting out of hand and present handling of the messes results in biodegrading of the biochemicals with trapped carbon dioxide to result in the reemitting of GHGs needlessly. I urge readers to prod the ED staff into calling for using pyrolysis on those messes to convert about 50% of carbon present into inert charcoal that would be buried. The other 50% of the carbon gets converted to some organic chemicals that can separated and refined to use for making drugs or fuel. Further details can be checked out by reading my comments 15 &20 on the Green, Inc, blog of NYTimes, with lead title word Biosolids… April 14-5. A much greater benefit accrues from using pyrolysis as all germs, non-metal toxics and drugs are destroyed the messes will not cause water pollution problems from seepages or washouts. I find it appalling that ED does not view that the messes can become a resource in curbing global warming and much more. Dr. J. Singmaster
Genesis 8:22 God said, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night SHALL NOT CEASE”. Any true Christian will reject Global Warming as the anti-God, humanistic, farce that it is.
Marty,
The higher the price of gas the more people buy more fuel efficient cars which are generally smaller (more smaller cars means less dangerous accidents). Less dangerous for whom, Marty? Those still driving SUV’s? What about the time it takes to get all the little cars on the road you’re talking about. Will you remove semi tractor trailers from the road to protect all those people driving little cars??? How funny you are!
Alternative fuels are too expensive without government subsidies. It costs more to produce a gallon of ethanol than the cost of gas per gallon at the pump today. Take away the government subsidies for ethanol, if you want the price of fuel to rise to a point where people will change their behaviors. You people are really about forcing those of us that wish to remain free into a lifestyle we don’t desire. Tyrants, dictators.
get the oil producing companies ,countrys,states and kingdoms to convert old supertankers to live breed krill,shrimp,and fish to restock oceans to offset co2 ,bloom krill releases can lower co2,and are a healthy part of the ecosystem.in a fish tank you use a filter and aerate the water to be able to breed fish >upscale it the size of a supertanker and it’s an important step to lower co2.while in dual benifit the local fishes will thrive putting that fish in your fish sandwich,a sustainable asset if done before the time runs to late
Generally speaking, I can understand what everyone is talking about; however, when I see politicians getting involved and pushing this agenda, I remember that most politicians are lawyers and most lawyers don’t do anything unless they profit from their efforts. A lot of money is involved to get this agenda going, therefore we have a lot of politicians (lawyers) getting on the bandwagon. Physical Science is not political and politics is not physical science. To keep this problem of global warming in its proper perspective, let’s get the self-seeking lawyers out of the picture and let the technical people speak.
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I’d like to see more discussion about the huge role that cities and urban design will have to play in any serious reductions of CO2.
Consider this: cities are the single largest source of carbon emissions contributing to climate change, but city dwellers on average have lower carbon footprints per capita than their rural counterparts because they rely much less on cars.
And consider this too: If Washington D.C. were to be transformed into a high-density public transit and pedestrian centric city, its current annual per capita carbon emissions (19.7 tons of CO2) could be reduced to resemble those of Barcelona (3.4) or Rio de Janeiro (2.3). http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/23/city-dwellers-smaller-carbon-footprints
Meanwhile, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, will they be talking about the largest things we build? They didn’t in Bali two years ago or in Poland last year and the subject of the effects of city design and urban layout is not on the agenda yet again.
It would be wonderful if EDF could bring a bit more attention to the Ecocity Summit in Istanbul that will be happening parallel to Copenhagen on December 13-15. Check out http://www.ecocity2009.com for more info. Also, http://www.ecocitybuilders.org are doing great work in that direction. Thanks for reading!
Hello,
I am trying to find information on the possiblity that cell towers and cell phones and the microwaves they emit are contributing to global warming. I think it needs research. Microwaves heat water and there are millions of cell towers blanketing the earth now, sending out a constant stream of microwaves – even one degree more of heated water vapor would make a difference, wouldn’t it?
No one is researching this. We are microwaving our planet.
Susan Heckel
Thought you might like this political animation about Climate-gate. http://www.markfiore.com/political/watch-climate-gate-science-animation
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If you will consider, oil, sludge and coal as a retardant to the heat from the center of the earth you may start to see a trend. Think of the oil as radiator fluid cooling the outreach of the heat from within. Now think of the vast oil reserves in Alaska, the ice that is melting the icecaps, changing the weather patterns and being, my belief, global warming.
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Regarding decommissioning of nuclear plants due to age, why no discussion of replacing reactor parts as needed, thus doing away with need to decommission?
I have read that virtually ANY part of a reactor can be replaced. Much like we see cars from far in the past (Model A Fords) on the highway, reactor parts can be replaced.
I urge you to initiate a good discussion with technical details of reactor parts replacement.
William Gloege
Santa Maria, Ca
One of the chief complaints against nuclear power plants is accumulation of waste and the potential dangers of that waste given possible, future hypothetical events.
What is completely forgotten is the topic of fossil fuel waste. Our real choices are fossil fuel OR nuclear for the level of power needed to run modern society. BOTH have a “waste problem.” Not just nuclear.
Fossil fuel waste is “out of sight, out of mind.” It is thrown immediately into the air, mostly invisible to us. But it contains both CO2 and tiny fragments related to burning coal, oil or natural gas, and those particles cause immediate human injury and deaths.
The NYT published a report that in the US alone the health bill for pollution, mostly from burning fossil fuel, is $120 billion every single year. This is very different from the possible, hypothetical harm environmentalists and others charge against nuclear power.
The actual injury and death caused by nuclear is far, far less than that of fossil fuel. (“How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt?” Forbes, 6/10/12). Coal alone causes 170,000 deaths per trillion kWhr electricity generated, while nuclear caused 90 deaths for the same power generated, including Chernobyl and Fukushima. Repeat: 170,000 vs 90.
I urge EDF to start a comparative discussion of the human toll of nuclear vs fossil fuel. using actual injury and deaths, not possible, hypothetical future events. We must remind anti-nukes of the ongoing and immediate costs we pay for fossil fuel waste “storage” in our precious earth atmosphere, including destruction of the planet’s ability to support humans and other life.