low cost wave energy farming?

Originally posted by googlefudge
The atmosphere is powered by the sun.

The sun is not about to run out of power.
Wind turbines do indeed take energy from the wind... As do trees and tall buildings...

Somehow however trees have not caused a worldwide climate disaster by slowing
the wind down.

The atmosphere is powered by the sun

Have solar panels that absorb the suns energy (which the atmosphere is powered by...you said it) been deemed un-green? I haven't been following the movement...

Somehow however trees have not caused a worldwide climate disaster by slowing
the wind down.

Its called the turbulent flow boundary layer... flow velocity in in-viscid fluids (like air) are very small ( in fact modeled as zero) at the surface (and tree height ). Its not until you get to wind turbine height that the wind has real momentum and high volumetric energy density, and hence reasonable energy to absorb.

Not to mention large scale wave farms that will effectively decrease the surface area of the ocean... a surface area that has a major function heat/mass transfer between the oceans/atmosphere and land.

How about the oceanic turbines that will gather energy from the global currents...I guess currents like that are actually unnecessary, and not do not play any critical role in the climate.

And yet, without doing a single calculation you can sit in you ideological world and claim to know 100% that making these changes, removing all other fuel sources,continue to consume energy at an every increasing rate, we can safeley expect no noticeable changes in the Earths climate... REALLY?

Fuk I'm dumb!

Originally posted by joe shmo
Yes that's right...listen to your leader, don't read through it for yourself...as humy can attest to, nothing that was discussed had any value.

First the amount of energy compared to the whole system is just too small

What exactly are those quantities? What amount of Energy absorption from the atmosphere would you consider to [b]have[/b ...[text shortened]... ]

Are you 100% sure of this...Is this a fact? Did your personal climate model tell you this?

My leader??? I like twhitehead [and humy] but when I think they're wrong I tell them.
[as they will tell you]

I did actually read the thread, and having studied physics understood it as well.

The sun delivers something on the order of 3~4 orders of magnitude more power to the
Earth than humankind's total energy consumption. And in 2002 delivered enough energy
to the biosphere in one hour than was used by humans in that entire year.

And while human energy consumption is going to increase, it is not going to do so indefinitely.

Human population is set to stabilise at ~11 billion [+/- a billion or so] according to the
best UN forecasts, and then possibly even decline. [assuming no major disaster that
causes a massive die off]

And with a stable population brought up to universally high living standards energy production
also peaks and levels off.

USA per capita energy use for example is actually pretty stable and is lower than the late 70's peak.
Rounding up, the USA average power consumption is ~ 10Kw
If all ~11 billion people forecast to be in the world used that amount of power on average then
the world total would by ~110TW compared to ~16TW now.

Or ~7 times the total amount of power we consume today.

So that would be ~7 hours of sunlight to cover the entire year...


Renewables can and do absolutely have local effects on the climate/environment, but they don't cause
the kind of global climate changes that fossil fuels do.

Originally posted by joe shmo
Fuk I'm dumb!

Apparently.

Originally posted by joe shmo on page 1
No, the volume of the ocean is fixed, ...

Just a thought, but the volume of water in the worlds oceans is not actually fixed. Things like the Greenlandic and Antarctic Ice caps represent a huge source of extra water. A little while ago it was reported that there are significant underground reserves of water, much to the delight of the creationists, which conceivably could cause the amount of water in the world's oceans to change. Also if the ocean floor changes shape due to tectonic activity then that would displace large amounts of water upwards.

None of this particularly affects your argument, which at least on page 1, seemed to be that there are ecological consequences to wave farming. I agree, but there is no environmentally sound way of generating energy, at least in the quantities we need. As a "sole way of doing it" wave farming is poor. As one of a number of methods used in appropriate places it could be a useful addition. I've no idea what the energy extractable is and the cost benefit assessment depends strongly on that.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Apparently.

Why is it when you show up to the argument, a bunch of thumbs down appear on every one of my posts?

Is this a way to attempt to discredit my physical arguments with humy (not yourself btw.)

I thought you said you "understand" the physics behind my arguments? I can assure you in and of themselves they are sound. Whether or not they are accurate with respect to the climate...that is what we are here debating about.

The thumbs down method is a childish and cowardly way to tarnish my responses. In the future, If you have a particular issue with my account of Thermodynamics or Physics in general please comment on it directly. No-one benefits from a sweeping thumbs down over a post when at least portions of a post are clearly true.

Thank You.

Originally posted by joe shmo


As for solutions: Who knows? What is more realistically going to happen ( either by our own hands or natural processes) is a mass extinction...a solution with very ugly prospects for the short term future of the human race, but it will probably solve the long term problem ( and with the added benefit of changing none of our habits,... we can just keep doing exactly what we are doing!)

I ask you for your "alternative" to going all renewable, not "solutions". We already have the solution; go all renewable.
From what I can gather from your response here, your 'alternative', if we can call it that, consists of something vaguely along the lines of "just give up and just keep doing exactly what we are doing and let us make ourselves go extinct if that what it means to give up".
Well, I reject that policy. I think we should NOT give up and we should at least try and do something to prevent terrible disaster as we have nothing to loose from trying. You offer no real alternative so we see no reason from your posts why we should NOT go all renewable.

I also don't understand your motivation against going all renewable -what is it?

Originally posted by joe shmo
Why is it when you show up to the argument, a bunch of thumbs down appear on every one of my posts?

Is this a way to attempt to discredit my physical arguments with humy (not yourself btw.)

I thought you said you "understand" the physics behind my arguments? I can assure you in and of themselves they are sound. Whether or not they are accurate with r ...[text shortened]... eeping thumbs down over a post when at least portions of a post are clearly true.

Thank You.

I thought you said you "understand" the physics behind my arguments?

You keep missing the point again and again; even if your said physics is basically correct, your argument is not an 'argument' to not go all renewable.
This is because merely going all renewable having an 'effect' on climate doesn't equate with that effect being bad or at least bad enough for it to be worse than just keep increasing the atmospheric CO2 and there is no reason to think that going all renewable would likely have a significantly bad effect on climate in particular even if (hypothetically ) it DID have a measurable/observable effect and you haven’t yet given a reason for us to think the contrary to this.

P.S. You really should refrain from trying to insult people ("childish and cowardly"? ) you are debate with in a forum (any forum about any debate ) just because they disagree with you. You are not persuading anyone of anything by just dishing out insults and you could get yourself banned from this forum if you keep that up.

Originally posted by humy

I thought you said you "understand" the physics behind my arguments?

You keep missing the point again and again; even if your said physics is basically correct, your argument is not an 'argument' to not go all renewable.
This is because merely going all renewable having an 'effect' on climate doesn't equate with that effect being bad o ...[text shortened]... just dishing out insults and you could get yourself banned from this forum if you keep that up.

even if your said physics is basically correct

The only "said physics" were stated by you. My statements, on the other hand, were "actual Physics". This fact can be readily understood and verified by any competent person who practices in the field. A fact that I now believe you were trying to smear ( sorry, googlefudge). Not because they were of any real danger to the "renewables" argument in general, but more likely that they were a danger to your own perception of qualification on all things science.

Several times you edited your post to change your stance on the "said physics" to agree with my position, as if that had been your position the whole time, if anyone should be banned it should be you (see below)

"Please edit quoted text responsibly. Making modifications which misrepresent the original post will result in a forum ban"

When you completely flip your stance within the same post to which my argument against "said position" replied, and try to make me look like an a..hole that is just spinning my wheels for no other reason than self affirmation, I would say it directly violates the "Forum Law" below. You don't know much about "actual Physics", but you sure are good at breaking Laws.

Now, as for this whole argument against renewables in general that you think I have, your wrong. I don't have a bias towards them.

It isn't a question of whether or not they will have an effect on the environment/climate... I believed the intention of my argument was to say that we do not know the extent of the combined effect of renewables will have on the system when we draw all of our power from them. It is an argument of scale (local or global) gf. points out that the energy consumption of the human race is small when compared to the energy contained in the biosphere, a fact which I will not argue against.

However, is there more to it than just energy consumption? Climate models are based on the "local sized" chunks of the biosphere. That means that local climate change cannot be ignored with respect to global climate change. Its as if you are saying that global climate isn't dependent on local climates...Its the crux of the entire climate model. So stating that the interconnection of millions of variables that not only evolve, in space,time,energy, but appear and disappear, is an equally absurd statement to make.

Originally posted by joe shmo

even if your [b]said physics is basically correct

The only "said physics" were stated by you. My statements, on the other hand, were "actual Physics". This fact can be readily understood and verified by any competent person who practices in the field. A fact that I now believe you were trying to smear ( sorry, googlefu ...[text shortened]... evolve, in space,time,energy, but appear and disappear, is an equally absurd statement to make.[/b]

Several times you edited your post to change your stance on the "said physics" to agree with my position, as if that had been your position the whole time,

That is simply not true;
“even if it is...” (or words of that effect ) doesn't equate with “it is ...”.

It isn't a question of whether or not they will have an effect on the environment/climate... I believed the intention of my argument was to say that we do not know the extent of the combined effect of renewables will have

Then, I assuming that “we” above includes you (that would be the normal meaning of the word “we” if you say it ) , unless I am missing something here, you have apparently changed your stance. Reminder:

your quote at the bottom of page one of this thread:

“..In the future when all your "green" energy methods are scaled up as demand continues to grow (and they will) and they have the same effect as burning fossil fuels what will have been the point? ...”

You didn't say "...if they have the same effect..." but "...and have the same effect..." with no word "if" anywhere there so I assume you are saying they will? (it certainly looks like it to me)
If so, you DO claim to 'know' the combined effect of renewables would be “ same effect as burning fossil fuels”, right?
If I somehow misunderstood what you said here, I apologies (even though you have been unclear ) but then please explain how I misunderstood and what you actually meant.

plus:

You say we "do not know the extent of the combined effect of renewables" but we actually have good reasons to believe that, whatever effect they have, it wouldn't be significant enough to cause thousands of deaths.
But, we DO know that the effects of the continuation of burning fossil fuels WILL cause thousands (if not millions ) of extra deaths! So we obviously should go all renewable -its a non-brainier.

Its as if you are saying that global climate isn't dependent on local climates...

Nope.

...the energy consumption of the human race is small when compared to the energy contained in the biosphere, a fact which I will not argue against.

So does that mean you agree that the energy consumption from renewables is too small compared to energy contained in the biosphere to have a significant effect on climate?

Originally posted by humy
With the cross-section shape staying constant, the surface area of each wave gets less as its size gets less -no argument there. But an ocean surface with smaller but more numerous waves per unit of geographical area (not of the possibly varying surface area of water but the unvarying geographical area as seen from above ) of ocean might have the same surface a ...[text shortened]... ll ones than the large ones, then the total surface areas of the two sets of waves are the same.

I'm getting tired of this simple bickering, but if we must continue

You had 11 edits on this quoted post above...

In the beginning you refuted the following statement flat out, i remember it well:

"A Sphere has a minimum surface area per unit volume. As waves decrease in amplitude the surface approaches that of a sphere, as such the volume remains constant and its surface area decreases."

by the end of your 11 edit rampage, you transformed it into the converse statement:

"With the cross-section shape staying constant, the surface area of each wave gets less as its size gets less -no argument there."

Which is funny,... because it still makes no physical sense, and is absolutely poor analysis (you were grasping at straws to agree with me to save face on a well known mathematical result)

That is "misrepresenting an original post", so just come off it already ( you began it by threatening me with a forum ban, I simply called you out on your childish and fear induced thumbs down charade!)

I'll reply to the rest of your post later

Originally posted by humy

Several times you edited your post to change your stance on the "said physics" to agree with my position, as if that had been your position the whole time,

That is simply not true;
“even if it is...” (or words of that effect ) doesn't equate with “it is ...”.


[quote] It isn't a question of whether or not they will have an effect ...[text shortened]... too small compared to energy contained in the biosphere to have a significant effect on climate?

“..In the future when all your "green" energy methods are scaled up as demand continues to grow (and they will) and they have the same effect as burning fossil fuels what will have been the point? ...”

I have not changed my stance. In light of new information, energy consumption alone may not be enough to drastically change the climate. However, I can assure you that the millions of interconnected variables that can be used to describe the dynamics of our integrated climate could care less about rounded bulk energy calculations. I mean... if I'm wrong, why bother with supercomputer climate models in the first place? The global climate model is[ dependent on local climate cells (variables)...end of story. So when somebody says the ridiculous statement that they fully understand the the functionality of a system as mind blowingly complex in its relationships as the climate,no general plan or geographical layout of all renewable types before the scaling begins, without the aid of a supercomputer that has the necessary resolution to properly model it ...I say you are full of it, wildly overconfident, and quite possibly reckless.

Btw, I understand that CO2 is bad for environment, I'm just hoping we don't cut off our nose to spite our face.

As far as our debate on this subject goes , I'm done. You may have the last word. Good luck to you.

Originally posted by joe shmo


In light of new information, energy consumption alone [b]may not be enough to drastically change the climate.
.[/b]

which new information made you change your mind and where did it come from?

The global climate model is[ dependent on local climate cells (variables)...end of story.

Yet again, apparently, you cannot read. I clearly implied the exact opposite to what you repeatedly say I say. I never ever said/implied that climate is not "dependent on local climate cells" in any way and I challenge you to show me exactly where I did!

the rest of your post and your other post is also mainly straw man. for example, I never threatened you with a ban:
"you could get yourself banned from this forum if you keep that up."
doesn't equate with
"I will get you ...(same as before) ..."