Ken, dams *do* consume vast quantities of carbon in their construction, as
many as 12 gallons of oil per tonne of cement (the manufacture of which is
uitself a leading source of GHG). The world's major hydropower resources
have already been largely exploited. Some dams have a long service life,
which helps payback the iunitial energy investment and possibly justifies
the immense ecological damage and harm to communities which all major dams
always involve. Many dams silt up after a few years and cease to provide
power; they never pay back. But they leave disrupted ecosystems, ruined
wetlands and water basins, salinated soil and wrecked communities. But the
bottom line is that hydropower is marginal and absolutely irrelevant to the
problem caused by the end of Big Oil. Some theoreticians propose building
huge propellors in mid-Atlantic to be driven by the Gulf Stream; that's how
desperate people are. They better be quick, in case the Gulf Stream stops
flowing altogether because of global warming.
By 'hydragas crystal' you mean methane hydrates locked under arctic ice
sheets presumably. They are like cold fusion and other forms of perpetual
motion machines. They will never be exploited. The reasons why have been
laborious documented by myself (and I've been to the Soviet arctic icefields
myself and know what it theoretically involved) and many others. As you say,
if such hydrates ever were released it would be as a result of the melting
away of the ice sheets. The amounts of methane spontaneously released into
the atmosphere might, according to former Greenpeace man Jeremy Legget,
trigger the feared runaway global warming which would turn this planet into
Venus, hot enough to boil lead on.
Geothermal is not a solution. Nor is biomass. Even if current proposals to
grow prairie grass for biomass were widely implemented the energy economics
would not solve the problem. Americans will have to learn to catch the bus
and ride a bicycle.
BTW, it doesn't surprise me but it does sadden me to hear people start
saying things like "old growth forests are the worst trees from the point of
view of > global warming.> We should cut them all down". Keep going, you'll
get a job in the Dubya environmental team. Of course the same people who now
proudly point to the reforestation of New England which happened in the past
50 years as evidence of capitalism's enviornmentally-benign impact
(forgetting that the price the world has paid is the enormous quantity of
fossil carbon trhe US threw into the atmopshere instead) will immediatelt
start telling us what a bad thing from all sorts of *environmental* points
of view, old growth forests are and how we need to cut them all down as
quick as possible to get the ethanol to keep our SUV's going...
Mark Jones
http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ken Hanly
> Sent: 30 June 2000 07:43
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L:21009] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: My looniness
>
>
> I live in Manitoba. THe bulk of my electricity comes from hydro.
> There are two
> supplementary coal-fired plants that usually do not operate. Quebec
> electricity comes almost entirely from hydro, although some of it
> is imported
> from Labrador at cheap prices and then exported to New England
> states at much
> higher prices.. Hydro power plants do not burn fossil fuels.
> Ontario as well
> as France has considerable nuclear power.. I do not know how much
> electrical
> power is produced worldwide through hydro but it must be substantial. In
> Denmark over 10 percent of power is from wind. There is no reason why this
> cannot be increased.
> Global warming is likely to become more of the "in" crisis long before
> fossil fuels run out.
> In fact it could be argued that the sooner fossil fuels run out
> the better. By
> the way there are huge deposits of hydragas crystals that could
> be developed
> as a source of natural gas. Geothermal power is also an underdeveloped
> resource in most areas. If oil prices go to 30 or 40 dollars a barrel
> geothermal power would be economic even in areas such as Saskatchewan.
> Scrub and quick-growing wood is also actually a good source of
> heat plus the
> junk grows back very quickly releasing oxygen and using carbon dioxide. In
> Sweden garbage is a source of heat for some urban centers. By the by, old
> growth forests are the worst trees from the point of view of
> global warming.
> We should cut them all down
> and replant with quick growing trash trees that we could cut for pulp :)
> The problem with global warming is that it is difficult if
> not impossible
> to know if it is a long term trend or what its effects will be.
> Even if there
> is global warming the effects are mixed and there are certainly
> no foolproof
> models that would assure one of any unimaginable economic
> results, just that
> there will be considerable changes with winners and losers. Of course you
> could argue from a precautionary principle that action should be taken now
> because changes may be abrupt, irreversible and disastrous. With global
> warming the hydragas crystals on the floor of the Arctic Ocean
> may warm and
> become instable producing one huge natural gas fart that destabilizes the
> whole north of the Great White North and who knows what will happen then.
> Cheers, Ken Hanly
>
> Brad De Long wrote:
>
> > >I don't understand. Is the YES meant to imply that electricity
> production
> > >depends ultimately upon fossil fuels?
> >
> > Unless you live in the Pacific Northwest or France, the bulk of your
> > electricity comes from power plants that burn fossil fuels...
>
>
