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Sol Sanders | Follow the Money No. 73 | Obama energy strategy: one part black magic, two parts propaganda
Here's the latest from Sol Sanders. A version of this column is cheduled to appear Monday in The Washington Times. -- Chris
Follow
the Money No. 73 | Obama
energy strategy: one part black magic, two parts
propaganda
Sol Sanders
Again,
and again, we must return to energy, the mother’s milk of the economy where the
Obama Administration’s ham-fisted tactics are strangling the baby of recovery in
the crib.
In
his June 29th press conference, the President again singled out rebates to push
U.S.
fossil fuel production in his demand for tax increases for an economy already
threatened by double-dip recession. The proposal compounds regulatory mischief:
blocking oil and gas in the Gulf
of Mexico
while Chinese and other foreign companies drill off
Cuba
almost within sight of Florida
beaches, forfeiting 250,000 jobs. “Regs” threaten West
Texas
fields contributing 20% of U.S.
new production because of an obscure lizard. The White House dallies over a
pipeline to bring Canadian oil sands crude to Texas
refineries. While Moscow
pushes Arctic prospecting, Juneau
can’t get Washington
to open up 14.7 million acres of state land with the critical Alaskan pipeline
faltering from declining throughput.
Mr.
Obama’s token strategic oil release – into the international crude pool rather
than reducing U.S.
pump prices – was one more feint in Mr. Obama’s ideological war on fossil fuels.
[Never mind ignoring the reserve’s national defense character; it was never
meant as a price instrument – nor political toy.]
All
this is done under the rubric of protecting the environment. “Junk science”, as
many highly qualified skeptics believe, may underpin claims fossil fuels
consumption decisively impacts climate change. It will take decades to know,
given our shallow data for changing climate through the
ages.
But
“junk economics” is all too evident in the Administration’s energy strategies.
Granted, impediments to cheap energy were inherited from previous governments
and imperfect markets. But Mr. Obama’s drive for “renewable sources” mimics
earlier Carter Administration’s abandoned “alternative energy” skeletons still
littering the landscape.
Mr.
Obama’s wind power subsides are indeed producing jobs – for
China
and Spain
– with transferred American companies' technology. Chinese windmills and solar
panels are exported to the U.S.,
often replacing American manufacture.
The
vignette of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger entertaining the possibility of
Chinese “high-speed rail” proposals with federal stimulus funds – just before
California
all but bankrupted -- is quintessential of a mind set. High salaried
propagandists for tax free non-governmental organizations [NGOs] promote “the
environment” through advocacy of “mass transit”, citing
China’s
example. They fail to note deficit-ridden Chinese government railways – whose
two top executives recently were arrested for stealing tens of millions –
blackmailed European and U.S.
companies for technology transfers in exchange for a phantom Chinese market. Now
Beijing
attempts exports while their own projects operate with anemic passenger loads --
at lower speeds because of faulty engineering. The misrepresentation is all too
typical of limitless, mindless propaganda pumped out on a daily basis, for
example on that other Washington
subsidized enterprise, National Public Radio, by the Obama cheering
section.
In
fact, a whole new era in fossil fuels is beginning. So-called “peak oil”, the
crisis posited when diminishing reserves supposedly would meet rising
consumption, has vanished. New vistas have developed worldwide with expanding
deep-water drilling technology – a Norwegian billion-dollar floating platform in
deep water off Rio
de Janeiro,
a good example. New fields await discovery in our own Gulf
of Mexico
– the less than cataclysmic British Petroleum oil spill notwithstanding.
Recovering Iraq
with the world’s second largest reserves, many yet untapped, is returning with
10 million barrels a day.
Even
more spectacular, a new era for natural gas suddenly has emerged with new
technology exploiting vast shale reserves lying deep below rock formations in a
dozen countries, not the least the U.S. [An ironic comment on priorities:
Beijing
is investing government billions into American companies to get at that
technology.] Of course, there already has been a half-baked university “study”
by enviromentalistas arguing “fracking” – the process of getting at that gas –
would poison ground drinking water. The study produces not a single instance nor
does it explain the risk with most such deposits lying well below
aquifers.
“Politically
correct” spokesmen and the mainstream media promise black magic energy
solutions, for example, electric cars, ignoring almost three quarters of our
electricity for recharging batteries is met with coal and gas – much less the
enormous costs and problems of grid expansion required for a massive changeover.
This
conjuror’s trick has gone wrong; Mr. Obama is actually cutting the beautiful
young lady in half as he cripples the energy sector.
»
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So this is a "propaganda piece", for whom precisely Rocky?
All i can see Mr Whelan doing is rolling through the facts of corrupt, inept US Govt energy policy and shooting their own country in the foot. The only angle he appears to be pushing is for more Gas exploration.
Apparently it's not soaking in for you. I don't disagree with the premise you set forth, or the actual article. It's the loose presentation and the tone of the article. Just mention peak oil, climate change, conservation, green jobs, and/or more drilling and the deed is done. With this article you get all of them in one! What a bargain. Give credit to, or blame of, the Jews or slavery and you can really get a pot a-boilin'.
It is designed to create division and derision -- and has garnered both. Sure, the whole energy empire is corrupt and the politicians are bought for. I agree. My point has been all along that the article is a pump-piece. It could just as well have been written for the garment industry or unionism for that matter. Rile 'em up!
nice rocky
Well said...
Please deconstruct these "maniacal ravings" Rocky with your razor sharp expertise rather than your generalised statement of assumed superior knowledge ...BTW i'm not going to be holding my breath waiting for your killer response (yawn)
It's all been done by hundreds before us. I don't care to respond any more to this than I would try to reason with a psycho on a local corner soapbox holding a "Jesus Saves" sign. I'm sorry I wasted my time actually reading the whole thing.
If you don't see this article as a hit-getter on a slow weekend then you're blind.
By Sunday evening I'll expect to see an article titled, "God is DEAD!". That should stir some things up. Even the J-bashers and N-haters will emerge for that hit-fest.
That was covered by a newsreel back in the late '40s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3eTsNEgmL8
Speculators whining about how much their ass hurts make me laugh.
Wow. Chris Whalen submitted this juvenille piece of junk? Chris, can you explain? This is a fact free rant, on what is otherwise a serious subject. One hopes this does not reflect your own level of understanding of the world/USA energy problem.
GG
Being a bank expert doesn't mean he knows anything about other subjects. He is definitely a good guy to listen to about the banking bizness, tho.
Osama bin laden and Obama bin laden. One Muslim criminal dead, one left to go!
We need rope. Lots of rope
President Obama sets a low bar for being president in more ways than I can list.
Whoever wrote this article is a complete fucking idiot. It is just a bunch of rhetorical statements with no substantial foundation. My real question here: how can anyone read drivel like this and not immediately recognize it for what it is?
It is drivel, but it is nowhere near the idiocy demonstrated by the lack of substantial foundation in US energy policy. The law of large numbers says they should have come up with at least a few programs or initiatives that don't stink like they just pulled them out of their asses.
i agree with you armchair, this guy who wrote this is an idiot, really the gall of putting up some mindless rant is pathetic
Armchair - good see you "recognise immediately things for what they are". In the past 5 decades, how many new petrol brands have you seen in your local area?
Or is your local Americana much like Socialist-Fascist Europe where the same mega-monopolist Oil brands have dominated the petrol supply in your tank un-challanged in decades?
Ever wondered who and what supports these big bloated global monopolists, stops the free market churn of new young oil explorers and fights the murderous fight of oil wars? Write to your Govt, who just also happens to be a big fat monopoly institution (snap!), the one you fund and ask what happened to the free competitive market in enegry?
When you've got the answer from Govt, post it here, we all like a good laugh
OK, I have read your article now.
Everything you say is wrong.
Bottom line is, we are going to conserve. Whether we like it or not, we shall be getting by with less. That's the big picture. If our leadership wanted to do anything about it they'd be promoting stuff like electrified railroads and public mass transit.
Finally, I have personally met some of the guys who drill in West Texas. There are no lizards getting in their way. The fact is, exploitable oil reservoirs in Texas are smaller and harder to find these days. This is simply because we have been pumping them for 100 years. There's still oil out there, but the production rate is in decline and no amount of drilling or fracking will get Texas back above 1 MBPD again, ever.
And you've pretty much defeated your own argument about new oil vistas opening up in deep water. They are drilling in deep water exactly because the easy to find land-based oil is so far into decline.
Maybe he'd like to tell the people with inflammable tap water that fracking doesn't pollute aquifers.
You want to junk this poster because he says, "We will have to learn to conserve", we will have to learn to conserve That is the coming reality, the inheritance is just about squandered, as a people we say, "We where born rich, God gave it to us, and it will never ever run out! (apparently it says so, some place in the Bible, what the Bible doesn't tell us is who and how do we sue for breech of contract if we begin to feel we aren't getting, "everything" we have been promised! Reality will prevail, wishful thinking has little effect on reality!
Please have a look at this:http://jayhanson.us/page125.htm
You may have to cut and paste to make it work, I am not competent to comment on the science, I have been alive since the thirties and I believe he is correct!
Couldn't agree more.
It's a fact that as time goes by more and more energy is needed to get oil out of the ground. (drilling a few thousand miles under water and then a few more thousand miles under the seafloor is getting more expensive, not to mention dangerous and uncontrollable in the event of a leak). Any finite resource (oil,gas,coal) is simply not the long-term answer. The US should think about investing in some geo-thermal energy and increasing the efficiency of wind and solar power.
Whoever wrote this article sure sounds like a GOP-propagandist.
excellent UR, though the drill baby drill crowd will never get it through their Tahoe driving heads
Good retort Urban.
Good luck to the stupid author calling knowledge, science, junk. Bachman itis seems to be infecting the right, or maybe its just more Koch money,
Don't feed the troll.
Aside from everything else (i.e. the content in the article), everything YOU say is wrong. If you're going to debunk something at least be right about it.
Exponential growth, as measured by what? The folly of statistics?
Beyond that.
If you mean energy crunch, that's because dumbasses don't realize how much energy is really out there. The universe is full of energy. Fusion is the key. To say 'exponential growth is over' whatever that means, but growth is over, is about as foolish as a person can be. Vacuum tube thinking based on the sophistry of the mind. Fusion will be possible, but then again, if I dont go pick up food, and refuse to, I CAN starve to death. So if you want the world to go through that, and sadly that IS the approach we're taking, it's self inflicted suicide rather than a real, true course necessitated by 'reality'.
Growth through oil, perhaps over for the most part. Through fusion/nuclear? I don't think so. Only if idiots prevent it because they want financial fraud instead of investment and research.
There is no shortage of energy in this world. There is only a shortage of oil to meet an ever increasing NEED for energy. Mankind needs to progress, and we have some viable options, but wind/solar like you say aren't enough.
Get by with less? Yeah right. If energy were to decline, for a decade or two, there will be new world wars based off it. So no people won't get by with less, because the human race needs far more of it NOW than it gets. Without it, or a shortage of it, billions of deaths as well as wars which can also cause billions of death would occur. We already have well over a billion people hungry, with our 'extravagant' energy production.
Al Gore is a fraud. Statistics aren't science. Statistical models are folly. Plus without getting into it all, there are many causes for the Earth warming. How many HUNDRED feet was the ocean lower a few thousand years ago? How many hundred feet can it still raise? Human beings can ADAPT to that 1000x more easily than living without energy. We're in a period called interglacial for a reason. What happens during that period? Global warming. But even aside from that, who cares what causes it, I care more about how do you live despite it. How do you adapt to it? It's not fucking hard. Venice wasn't always streets full of water, but it adapted quite well. Although as a whole, I think moving back from the coastlines a better approach. I wonder how we all can dodge the tsunami of water from global warming.
Besides you forget that the whole world wants energy. So all those projections have us going down on energy usage, and what about other countries? They want much more (they NEED much more), and economically they are going to get it. So your answer when you understand that is you want us to go down x percentage...but then forget that that x percentage will be jockeyed over by all countries, meaning even less. Wars and famine, and all needless. Fusion is the key. Not idiot, 'give up and do with less even though its impossible'. Hippy thinking is what helped get us here, not how to get us out.
On nuclear, because of a tsunami, earthquake, and a nuclear plant constructed by monetary means (wrong economic system choice), needing to pay off monetary loans (wrong economic mechanism approach), to wall street-esque investors (why should anyone profit off nuclear energy?), known to have issues for decades ($$$ see earlier mechanism of why it wasn't replaced), somehow we can't do nuclear right? Besides, what we build in the future is NOT the same type of nuke plant. Look at 4th generation types, thorium, or nuclear pebble bed. So nuclear is a non-starter? What a fucking foolish that position is. Not based on science, but head in the sand dumbassery. Because somehow a few incidents equals them all going up? Somehow $$$ has to be the biggest factor in these? Somehow they have to be of the same design? Man you need to have some faith in the progression of the human mind. But then again our monetary system seems to have fucked that up, and while I understand that, it's kowtowing to those said idiots is all on you. Mankind can progress, you just need to take the banksters out of the equation, and THEN relook at matters such as nuclear plants....wow they're safe. More people get killed mining coal then die from nuclear. That's a fact.
Al Gore is a wall street fraud. Look it up. He's a traitor to his country and the human race. He's crazy.
Extravagant consumption? Again wrong. I can see my future great, great grandchildren needing 100x more energy in a day that we use in a year as not extravagant. People need to wake up and quit believing the sophistry.
We'll do with less, is like a republican calling for tax hikes, or a democrat not blaming the economy on bush.
Besides you also come to the conclusion that we've figured everything out. So why is it that em fields seem to precursor earthquakes? Had we been more knowledgeable of the situation, fukushima might never of happened.
There are so many things we don't know, that to think we've done anything but scratched the surface of knowledge is insane. The sun is going crazy, the magnetic poles are shifting, the planets of the entire solar system are heating up, we're in a interglacial period, and this guy thinks we need to shut down industry as if doing that would change any of these other things.
No what we need to do is understand them, and instead of our bright minds jerking off with fake statistics, and fake math, we need them actually doing science. We need them actually inventing shit.
I don't care about oil, because it is only a bridge to a high energy flux density that powers our world, not the end all be all peak of society.
If you want to give up go find a cave.
But first, we need to ditch the fucked up, borrowed, fraudulent system we run, as well as the world does.
Glass-Steagall
Then major Manhattan projects for many things, but obviously energy, nuclear and fusion.
If the future is less energy, then there is no future. Period. Which is sad, considering there is plenty of energy out there. Hell just look at the rotation of our planet. Far more energy there (not saying to tap it, just saying for sense of scale) then mankind has ever used. The answer is conservation? Only if people want to believe bullshit.
We need oil/natty/coal until we figure these things out. But we need a plan to figure them out. A major plan. Giving up and believing Queen of England bullshit sophistry, is a nonstarter. The whole 'green' movement is propaganda, created by who? The same people that control wall street. Go figure.
Go read LaRouche (right about economics since the 50's) about energy, and then you'll see the folly of your asinine position. So yes oil isn't our future, but neither is your way.
If we go down either paths, we're screwed, completely needlessly. We are able to avoid what's coming. But only if we actually use our minds, instead of believing bullshit propaganda based on sophistry. Bottom line, anyone that listens to your viewpoint on this is a fucking dumbass who isn't based in any semblance of reality. I feel the same way about the people who think oil can continue on forever too. There is no 'other side'. There's being right and being wrong. You are both wrong. One wrong for some corporations. The other wrong for others. Continue the inter-corporation fuckfest at the human races peril.
<EDIT>Misattributed response, leaving the rest of my comments in place. Note to self: more coffee before posting to ZH in the morning ...</EDIT>
I do think you got it more or less correct.
I will pick a nit with (3) however, as I also believe our climate is changing but I think its very difficult to say with any certainty what portion man has contributed to the overall delta thus far (which is quite arbitrary mind you). Another poster shared this YouTube which I found fascinating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKoUwttE0BA
I do confidently feel that if "modern society" is going to maintain a semblence of its energy consumption for more than what is left of my lifetime (~40 years) nuclear is pretty much the only solution. Well, that is if the population isn't reset to a much lower figure.
Regarding 5, I agree as I am not in the uranium camp as far as nuclear goes, but I am in the MSR camp. These reactors are not theoretical, they have been built and used for years (research style). Thorium MSR is a political problem, not a technology problem. Some quick points on Thorium MSR:
Texas used to be the yardstick of the oil industry; this is no longer true. Just look at the recent Brent vs WTI to understand this. The future of the oil industry, in terms of reserves, is not Texas. Further, many fields in MENA have been producing for decades and are aging. This is just going to get ugly as increasingly the only thing left is just more expensive to produce.
As an aside, Shell has been trying to get development going in the arctic (west and north shores of Alaska). There was also a very interesting TAPS property tax case that was settled recently. I summarized here (I have a link to the full 171 page judgement if you like reading that sort of thing):
http://allthefederales.blogspot.com/2011/06/nuggest-of-taps-property-tax-assessment.html
To wander off topic a bit, I am still hesitant about shale gas TBH. My concern in this space centers around the notion that a well doesn't produce more with fracking as it produces faster. So lets say a given well could produce 100 units over 10 years (obviously this would be a curve and my numbers are arbitrary - but I am simplifying to make a point), this is an average of 10 units per year. Fracking would produce those 100 units in two years, requiring additional capital to release additional gas.
The "additional capital" is the big thing to focus on, as my impression is that these fracking companies gobble up debt like crazy to keep their production numbers up. I have a gut feeling there will be a blow out in this industry and investors are going to be screwed. I would be very interested in anyone that has an informed opinion on this point (I am still forming my opinion - but this is my current assessment).
Regards,
Cooter
Yes, good points. There is a range of opinion on the topic of whether we should bulldoze wild areas or leave some of them free. I sorta lean toward conserving some of them -- I'm conservative that way. And could not resist the urge to reply to an ignorant rant with another rant.
If the MSR is our destiny, it needs to get into wide deployment pretty soon, and we need to shut down the ancient rusting LWRs as soon as possible. The political decision always seems to favor re-licensing the old rustbucket, but never approving anything new. Politics are stupid that way.
As for the oil in Texas, there's some interesting history there. Hubbert predicted that the US oil industry (the contiguous 48, Alaska was not a state at the time) would peak around 1970. That actually happened. Texas and California were the major oil producers back then and the USA was the world's biggest exporter of oil. The Texas Railroad Commission was the model organization for OPEC, by the way.
Hubbert's curve is, of course, an approximation -- it doesn't busy itself with little details about this field or that taxing authority. That's the beauty of it as well. As an approximation it has worked splendidly and we really haven't deviated from it by much. Jeffrey Brown has a chart showing Texas' oil production curve, with whole-world production overlaid, scaled, and shifted ~40 years. The fit is remarkable. Even when you include the projected output of Tupi and take an educated stab at Arctic production, all they accomplish is to offset declining North Sea, Saudi, and Iraqi production.
And of course the tail of this curve lasts a century or so. Peak oil does not mean we abruptly run out. It is a very-gradually tightening noose. And as you mentioned, if fracking and other accelerated extraction methods acutally work, they merely pull forward the eventual depletion date of a given formation.
Finally, solar energy needs to be promoted as well. It's not a panacea but most residential households could be electicity-neutral or -positive here in sunny Texas.
But as I said, politics are inherently stupid. I think we can look forward to iterations of the OP's rant from every political candidate and wannabe over the next year and a half or so.
LMAO ... you are ... either a greenie plant ... a troll ... or a clueless hippie ... what part of "Beaufort Sea" or "Chikuk Sea" did you not understand. Why don't you bust out a map real fast and do some homework! I would be thrilled to watch the youtubes of "bulldozers" taking it to the "arctic sea" ... you know ... "bulldozing" and stuff ...
ANWR is a political talking point. I was addressing the fields that lie in the arctic ocean. Besides, bull dozers are not involved in the development of any oil field, unless its putting a road/right of way in place, which by share of surface area is one of the most minimal impacts there is with regards to field development. That is to say, the real threat is a blow out, air polution, damn near anything else, not scraping a 20 foot wide path on the earths crust.
Futher, should you actually visit the "north slope" or an "arctic drilling platform" I think "urbanization" will be the last thing in your mind. After hundreds of miles of "nature" (is your home state even that wide?) you will finally get to see some "people in action". Bulldozing my ass.
Why don't you move to NORTH ALASKA, live there five years, then have an opinion ... ASSHAT. Otherwise, keep it constructive, informative, and relative.
I am sort of pissed off because anytime anyone suggests an energy policy one way or the other, its black/white. Meanwhile, all of present human civilization gets tomatoes shipped across the contential US and its all A-OK because we "didn't bulldoze the arctic sea" to make it happen. I am a self-righteous vegitarian eating an organic salad, I have the RIGHT on ZH ... nevermind that salad was raised thousands of miles away. I am not suggesting your food is raised thousands of miles away, just pointing out that this is the reality of our food distribution and when energy costs go up, shit is going to seriously hit the fan.
The MSR is not our destiny. It is very unlikely until we start making common sense decisions as a nation, common sense decisions in our best interest. Just raising awareness; spend some time with the PPT and then the YouTube and make up your own mind.
To suggest the tail of the curve last a century is misleading at best. It will only last that long if oil prices keep going up, otherwise the wells get abandoned.
My point with fracking wasn't that a field depletes, it was that high capital costs are closely tied with sustained output. I think that is lost on the market right now; folks assumed a well produces for more than a year or two (traditionally true but not with fracking). It means that NatGas is going to become more expensive over time as these costs are born by the product going to market, or the companies who are gorging on debt will go tits up and their leases acquired by bigger fish in the pond.
Solar is a joke, people who think this is the way of the future either (1) live in the SW US or a similar climate, or (2) don't get it. And do understand that I "get it", as I am 100% hydropower which was a significant factor in my present choice of residence.
I often joke with friends/colleauges about "a green future". I say, "Oh sure, green energy is totally the future" ... but my punchline is always "chlorphyll". Oil is millions of years of concetrated sunlight. It is not replaced in our existance. This gig is up, its just a question of can kicking. I think we can agree on that.
UI would be happy to debate further, but keep it constructive, otherwise warmest regards,
Cooter
Urban Roman
"Climate change is real, and fossil fuel use is a major contributor to it."
Excellent piece of satire. I really believed it until I read that.
Really. When did they change the IR spectrum of CO2?
Or, when did the coal-burning power plants convert all their emissions to unicorn farts?
Actually, the spectroscopic properties of CO2 disprove the theory of correlation between CO2 atmospheric concentration and climate change- especially when viewed in conjunction with the properties of N2 and O2 and their relative concentrations.
Your Peak Oil argument is just as full of it, but since production is a function of supply and demand at a given price, most discusions about peak oil tend to miss the forest for the tree.
CO2 - IR reactions, blah blah. What I'm waiting for is for one of these cimate-change monkeys (if they have the balls) to document the proportion of man-made shit blowing out vs. all the methane leaking out of Siberia, CO2 and others from volcanoes, etc. etc. etc. I maintain we'd be fucked with or without coal plants, but what do i know? (can't prove it either)
recommended viewing:
National Geographic film
"Global Dimming"
To believe or not to believe, that is the question. Without evidence from multiple sources, nothing is proven or disproven.
But...this film will definately have you consider our fate one way or the other.
I am waiting for the climate-change monkeys to state unequivocally what the optimum level of CO2 in the atmosphere is. It should have been the very first question they answered, and if they ever do, they will probably seal their own fate.
Cite, please.
Because every CO2 laser just quit working -- if CO2 doesn't interact with IR any more.
CO2 has basically no absorptivity between 5 and 15 microns.
I'm looking at a hard copy, but the citation reads: J.N. Howard, 1959: Proc. I.R.E 47, 1459
R.M. Goody & G.D. Robinson 1951: Quart. Jour. RMS 77, 153
Here's a spectrum for ya:
http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?ID=C124389&Units=SI&Type=IR-SPEC&I...
Note that, just outside the range you mention (thermal infrared at ordinary temperatures ranges from 3 to 20 microns), there are deep absorption peaks.
And here's the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
It's been known since 1824, you should really try to keep up.
Thanks for the NIST link- I tired the NIST front door this morning but couldn't find the data. The N2 data leaves a bit desired but perhaps I will have time next week to dig around the data gateway further.
Yeah, their site isn't very well organized. It was hard to find.
I'm surprised you didn't pick up on the remark about lasers. Its emission spectrum is not closely related to its absorption spectrum, with an emission peak around 10 μm.
Actually, the remark about lasers sent my mind in a completely different direction. With the more recent studies, the footnotes become so voluminous (actually a good thing, but then serious discussion must similarly increase in length) that they drive me back to the simpler "printed" word.
EDIT - On the subject of simplifying- if the hockey stick or doubling of atmospheric CO2 is to be believed, then how did they plant world even exist before big bad industry was driving CO2 above 170ppm?
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca
Ambient CO2 level in outside air is about 340 ppm by volume. All plants grow well at this level but as CO2 levels are raised by 1,000 ppm photosynthesis increases proportionately resulting in more sugars and carbohydrates available for plant growth. Any actively growing crop in a tightly clad greenhouse with little or no ventilation can readily reduce the CO2 level during the day to as low as 200 ppm. The decrease in photosynthesis when CO2 level drops from 340 ppm to 200 ppm is similar to the increase when the CO2 levels are raised from 340 to about 1,300 ppm (Figure 1). As a rule of thumb, a drop in carbon dioxide levels below ambient has a stronger effect than supplementation above ambient.
Arrhenius was wrong, he lacked any modern knowledge of the photosynthesis reaction. He may not have known that carbon dioxide was critical to life, or that water vapor have infra red absorption and emission. He certainly wasn't privy to ongoing research into increased absorption by diatomic molecules when in the presence of charged triatomic molecules.
From an electrical engineering standpoint, earth's atmosphere functions as an insulator (as opposed to a conductor of electromagnetic energy waves). The atmosphere makes the surface of the earth cooler during the day than it would otherwise be, and warmer at night than it would be (without an atmosphere). At the most basic level- electromagnetic energy cannot be re-emitted if it is not absorbed FIRST. There are only two significant sources of this electromagnetic energy- the earth's core, and the sun. The sun obviously accounting for the bulk of the electromagnetic energy that warms the earth.
If the sun is a battery and the earth is a light bulb and all the greenhouse gas molecules are capacitors which absorb, store, and re-emit electromagnetic energy, then amount of electricity that reaches the light bulb is LESS when there are more capacitors (conservation of energy). Capacitors aren't a great comparison since only the energy heat emitted is actually omnidirectional (unlike with re-emission of energy from any molecules in the earth's atmosphere, whereas the electrical flow to the light bulb is unidirectional within the circuit.
Regardless photosynthesis is KEY to life on earth. If the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were reduced to zero, all living organisms would die. The CO2 Nazis who claim to have science on their side refuse to quantify the very basic question which should have been answered on DAY 1 if their requested policy changes were based on legitimate science of- "what is the OPTIMUM amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?"
This is flawed on so many levels, I do not know where to begin....Let's see, a blantant strawman followed by a bad analogy. And it is culminated in a gargantuan red herring..Mixed in the mess is a horribly wrong description of the interaction of EM radiation and the atmosphere....
Where is the strawman? Is it not Arrhenius who is responsible for the advent of the theory of the correlation between Global Warming and the increased CO2 in the atmosphere, or did Fournier link CO2 to his Greenhouse Effect in 1824, or am I misreading the whole thing? The analogy wasn't perfect and I pointed out its gaping flaw, but the analogy does demonstrate that electromagnetic energy cannot be re-emitted if it is not absorbed FIRST(and the sum total of the energy that initially passes a molecule along a given vector and the energy that is re-emitted along the same vector is less than the amount of energy that initially reaches molecule from the sun). The culmination is actually not gargantuan red herring it is my primary problem with the proponents of intentionally reducing CO2 in the earth's atmosphere. Stealing taxpayer dollars is a property crime, GENOCIDE is punishable by the death.
Uh huh, and H2O overlaps that. There is a lot of that dihydrogen monoxide in the atmosphere, laying around in big deep puddles, frozen in vast sheets, and embedded in the crust. We will not be able to get rid of it. Oh, and except during short interglacial periods like the one we are living in now, a lot of the time the stuff is mostly frozen, which makes it even harder to deal with. You worry about global warming eh? Global cooling would be a LOT worse.
Good post! Why doesn't ZH have the opposite of "Junk"?
Urban Roman
Nice to see a man who has a handle on the entire oil industry, a man that 'knows it all'. Indeed not only do you know the world has reached Peak Oil, because you're tuned into God and he's done the global survey, you even know Texas oil reserves can't supply 1mbpd anymore!
Has any oil company called you up yet? You'd clearly get a job as a know-it-all knowing without exploration or surveys what's in the ground, fuking genius!
Personally I'd like the free market to prevail. It works through trial and error, failing and succeeding and will beat the crap out of any one persons, or moronic collection of persons (see US Govt), idea of how an industry is/should be.
So if the US Govt, and you, would just get the fuk out the way of small aggressive oil explorers we might actually see just how saturated and drowning in oil we are worldwide. Rather than this criminal US Govt protection racket of bloated fatuous Corporate monopolists like Exxon et al
sounds like zero govt is a retard, thinkin our govt is a free market or peak oil is a conspiracy. you sit there and do the same shit as the author of this article, you talk out your ass with no substance. only saving grace you have is the understanding exxon is a villian. but know this, it is a part of the kleptocracy, giving campaign donations to steal what it wants. so go and bash some informed opinion, but you sure the fuck shouldn't think i or some other dont think your a fuckin retard.
Gorilla
You scrawl i'm "..a retard, thinkin our govt is a free market or peak oil is a conspiracy.." I'm asking for a free market, from the Govt who strangles it. As for peak oil being a "conspiracy" i never said that, I'd call it a bnch of loons that come out the asylum every 40 years when the Oil price peaks.
You write, "Exxon is a villian. but know this, it is a part of the kleptocracy, giving campaign donations to steal what it wants." That's a re-write of precisely what I said!
And you finish with, "..go and bash some informed opinion, but you sure the fuck shouldn't think i or some other dont think your a fuckin retard". Who is the "some other", have you spoken to him personally?
-- Mr. O
Destruction of the US economy - Mission Accomplished for Obunghole