Re: [asa] Re: global warming

Hi Burgy,

The question of ethanol is more complicated than just
the CO2 the corn extracts from the air and then
returns to it when combusted. It involves other
factors like:

- how much fuel (and what type?) had to be combusted
to raise and transport the corn?
- if land was cleared to establish a corn field, how
much CO2 was released from that process?
- How much nitrous oxide (a more potent greenhouse gas
than CO2) was released during the farming process from
the soil?

Ultimately, the question of ethanol (and any biofuel
for that matter) depends on what type of feedstock is
used, and further, what techniques you use to
grow/produce your feedstocks. Cellulosic and
algae-based biofuels are arguably the best, both
because the processes used to make it are typically
more efficient on a life-cycle basis, and because you
side-step the food vs. fuel debate (which from my
viewpoint, isn't really a debate-food that could be
used for human consumption should NEVER be used as
fuels while there are still starving people in the
world).

In short, biofuels will benefit us ONLY if they are
done right. In that spirit, I am supportive of
cellulosic and algae-based biofuels (and maybe
sugar-based), but rather skeptical of corn-based
ethanol.

In Christ,
Christine (ASA member)

--- j burg <hossradbourne@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6/13/08, drsyme@cablespeed.com
> <drsyme@cablespeed.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Is it just me or does it seem obvious that, in the
> big picture, the answer
> > to both of these problems is the same? We have to
> stop burning fossil
> > fuels.
> >
> Yes. Interesting enough, ethanol does not have GW
> effects. An ear of
> corn, whether it rots on the stalk, is eaten, or
> turned into fuel,
> only returns to the atmosphere what it already used
> in growing.
>
> > Of course the details are not so simple. I
> suspect that there is not going
> > to be any one energy source that is going to save
> us, but we should be
> > working very hard to find alternative sources, and
> in the short term we
> > should be building nuclear power plants until a
> better source is found. And
> > we should have started years ago, so we need to
> get moving on this right
> > now.
>
> I think nuclear cannot be short term, because it
> takes so long to
> build. Short term plug in hybrids will make a
> difference -- enough of
> a difference is problematic. That means coal
> generated electricity and
> nighttime charging.
>
> I agree with you that many different energy sources
> must be brought into play.
>
> The best solution, of course, is for one of the
> thousands of bright
> young scientists working on this today to come up
> with a breakthrough
> solution.
>
> It could happen,
>
> Burgy
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri Jun 13 9:19 , Rich Blinne sent:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jun 12, 2008, at 6:05 PM, David Campbell wrote:
> >
> > The real problem is how fast the change is
> occurring. I don't know of
> > anything since the end-Paleocene (about 55 million
> years ago) that
> > might approach the modern rate of change in
> temperature and CO2.
> > Organisms have trouble keeping up or keeping in
> syc.
> >
> > Glenn and I have been discussing off line whether
> we can attribute
> > anthropogenic CO2 to the current warming. He kept
> accusing me of not taking
> > into consideration certain factors such as changes
> in solar output and
> > albedo. If he had read the IPCC reports he would
> have seen to what
> > excruciating degrees they took such things into
> account. Please note that
> > this is not a personal attack. Due to health
> reasons he rightly wants to
> > focus on areas where he has world-class expertise.
> Nevertheless, he should
> > realize there are others such as myself who have
> looked at this in very deep
> > detail. More importantly so did thousands and tens
> of thousands of climate
> > scientists in one of the largest peer review
> processes in the history of
> > science. One of the things that YEC and ID has
> done has been to portray the
> > scientific enterprise whether it is evolutionary
> biology or climate science
> > as not being in as mature or having as much
> consensus as it really does. In
> > the case of climate science corporate and
> hyper-libertarian have also tried
> > to misportray the science for their own benefit.
> As one tobacco executive
> > put it in the Sixties, "doubt is our product".
> >
> > Still, I gave Glenn sufficient information that he
> could determine himself
> > which is the driving force. Since the exchange
> didn't involve this list I
> > showed him with numerous graphs how the surface
> and the lower troposphere
> > was warming but the lower stratosphere was
> cooling. This is counter to
> > having the solar output being the driving force
> because it would warm up
> > both the LS and LT. The same holds for albedo
> differences. In fact climate
> > skeptics Roy Spencer and John Christie advance the
> exact same test on their
> > web site:
> >
> >
> >
> > During global warming, the atmosphere near the
> surface is supposed to warm
> > at least as fast as the surface warms, while the
> upper layers are supposed
> > to cool much faster than the surface warms.
> >
> >
> >
> > I showed Glenn precisely this. This is a good deal
> why the IPCC has put a
> > greater than 95% (before the Chinese delegation
> pushed them down to 90%)
> > confidence that anthropogenic global warming is
> true. The 90% figure was
> > agreed to by every government delegation
> word-for-word including our own.
> >
> >
> > I'm inclined to agree with Glenn that running out
> of oil is the most
> > pressing issue, though of course conserving oil
> would probably also
> > cut back on CO2 emissions.
> >
> > I don't disagree with Glenn that the oil supply
> problem is urgent but I also
> > contend that anthropogenic global warming is just
> as urgent and we should be
> > trying to solve both problems simultaneously. One
> thing that hasn't really
> > been stressed much here is how AGW has caused an
> extremification of the
> > climate *right now*. Dealing with extremes is
> often a dangerous thing to do
> > because it usually involves anecdotal data which
> often conflates climate and
> > weather. Fortunately the NCDC has what is known as
> the climate extreme
> > index.
> >
> >
> > The U.S. CEI is based on an aggregate set of
> conventional climate extreme
> > indicators which, at the present time, include the
> following types of data:
> >
> > 1) monthly maximum and minimum temperature
> > 2) daily precipitation
> > 3) monthly Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)
> > 4) landfalling tropical storm and hurricane
> wind velocity*
> >
> > * experimentalThe climate extreme index (without
> the experimental part
> > because when I look at this I see no discernible
> trend) looks like this:
> >
> >
>
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/cei/dk-cei.01-12.gif
> >
> > Here is the maximum and minimum temperature
> portions of the index:
> >
> >
>
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/cei/dk-step1.01-12.gif
> >
>
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/cei/dk-step2.01-12.gif
> >
> > Note that the extremes for the high maximum and
> high minimum are happening
> > but not the low maximum nor the low minimum. This
> gives us another clue of
> > what is causing the current warming. This is
> because warm nights are best
> > explained by CO2 forcing than solar forcing
> because (duh) the Sun is not
> > shining at night nor is the earth reflecting where
> albedo differences would
> > be significant. Note also all this talk about all
> the "cooling" going on is
> > not happening. That's because the local cooling
> that people notice is not a
> > significant portion of the area of the United
> States.
=== message truncated ===

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Fri Jun 13 13:03:21 2008