Sunday, August 02, 2020


Green Prince Of Darkness….Exposed

Today we have a new Green Prince poised to plunge the western world into a self imposed darkness.  This Prince first creates the fiction that Carbon causes climate change, then adds the fable that green energy exists which can dispel this nonexistent problem.  The entire range of ‘green solutions’ are all nonsensical.  We’ll limit this discussion to just solar cells and batteries, saving bio-fuels and windmills for another time.

    The Sun Gives Us Nothing for Free

As alluring as the premise may be, the promise of solar energy is not free.  The first solar cell was created in 1883 by Charles Fritts using a sheet of Selenium with thin Gold facings.  The Sun radiates approximately 1000 watts per square meter at maximum.  The Fritts cell produced 10 watts per square meter or 1% efficiency. The Russell Ohl patent of 1946 is considered the first modern solar cell.  Today’s solar panels are high purity Silicon with a light doping of Phosphorus and Boron to provide breaks in the Silicone for electron movement.

The Universe is a radiation chamber with EMR and particle emissions from all concentrated mass, and decay particles from individual atoms.  Solar radiation strips protons from Nitrogen atoms, creating Carbon-14.  Stripping exposed electrons is even easier.  Silicon has four rather stable outer shell electrons in an orbit that can hold eight electrons.  Boron has five outer-shell electrons, and Phosphorus has only three.  Silicon forms a cubic crystal grid, and slightly impure Silicone matrix sheets can then be embedded with Boron and Phosphorus atoms.

When exposed to sunlight, the Boron atom losses it’s easily excited fifth electron, which travels the Silicon matrix using the Phosphorus “hole” to the conducting collection grids on both sides of the photovoltaic cell and permanently exits the cell.

Only segments of the solar spectrum activate this flow and it must be captured on both sides of the panel to create a circuit.  The required capture grid blocks some of the incoming energy and the net result is 10% efficiency, or approximately 100 watts per square meter, and only within limited ambient temperature ranges which prohibit lenses or mirrors for simple amplification.

Efficiencies as high as 40% are available with exotic materials, but then one must address the ‘high cost of free’, which applies to every ‘green’ technology.  Silicon, Phosphorus and Boron are common elements, but to mine, refine and bring on line has a cost.  That cost is reflected in ‘cost payback’ of 5 to 7 years depending on the system and level of government forced subsidy.  But these costs are based on low cost carbon based energy systems providing these materials.   Regardless, this is a ONE-TIME, ONE-WAY EROSION PROCESS with a total system life of less than 20 years.

Solar cells produce only Direct Current, which is electric power by the migration of electrons, and in typical PV cells is only 1.5 volts.  Alternating Current creates a voltage, but transfers power as a wave, rapidly cycled between positive and negative, with little actual electron migration.  The first municipal Edison power systems were DC, but transmission loss and multiple voltage issues prevented success, and the Tesla-Westinghouse developed three-phase AC system became the driving force for modernization.

Converting DC to AC involves a conversion loss in an inverter, boosting to higher voltage and converting to more efficient three phase causes additional losses due to the Carnot Cycle. If you connect a hydro-turbine to a pump, you can only pump a portion of the water flowing from a dam into water pumped back to the dam.  If you use the hydro-turbine to generate electricity, then use an electric pump to pump water back ablve the dam, then the losses are even greater.  The combined losses converting 1.5 volt DC to usable 50 kV, three phase transmissible AC power is forever technically impossible.

Ignoring just these physical limitations, supposed science leading publications like Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and Discover, regularly show fanciful space based systems where vast arrays of solar panels, positioned around the planet, beam “sustainable” microwave energy back to Earth based antennas to provide 24 hour service.  Never mind all the limitations above, now add the Carnot loss converting to microwaves on both ends of this system.  Limitations to the field density of this transmission would require massive antennas, or large, “no fly zones” for humans, and instant on the fly cook zones for any stray birds.

To overcome solar wind and lunar gravity changes, these microwave transmitters would require constant realignment, or the transmissions would wander off the receiving antenna.  The fact that this science fiction is presented as anything other than TOTAL FICTION, is proof that these publications are all “pop” and no science.

Much like paying your Visa bill with your Master Card, this parasitic ‘clean’ energy cannot provide the ‘spare’ energy to avoid ‘dirty’ energy.  There is a constant loss of electrons in this system and power production erodes over time until, at twenty years, they are useless.  The Silicon sheets are protected with glass covers which require periodic cleaning and are subject to damage from hail and wind debris.

Solar cells efficiency is also a function of azimuth angle and reduces with higher latitudes, and seasonal tilt angle.  Systems with tracking ability have higher efficiency, but not recoverable installation costs.  You get progressively less energy at the poles, precisely at the time when you need the MOST energy.  To have usable power over extended periods requires a storage system. The most common of these is the battery, which is the heart of that ‘other’ planet saver.

   Dream Green Machine

Soon Electric Vehicles, aka EVs, will replace the nasty internal combustion engine and humanity will be in harmony with the Universe.  The transition technology in this race is the hybrid auto and the front runner is the Toyota Prius.  This undeniable marvel has a 120 pound Nichol-Metal Hydride battery that costs $3500 to replace or approximately $20 per pound.  There again, a cost based on carbon energy providing the material production.

The ‘Metal Hydride’ portion of these batteries includes the rare Earth elements of Lanthanum, Cerium and Neodymium.  These required green components do not willingly join the green cult movement.  To have your treasured EV, this planet must be mined and those elements must be extracted and refined.

Due to chemical erosion thru use, these batteries have an eight year or 100,000 mile warranty period.  You can save $450 per year on gasoline if you spend $450 per year on a battery.  You can walk forever up the down escalator and still get nowhere.  There is no way to improve or even ‘sustain’ our carbon-based life forms without expending some geologically stored carbon energy.

To the blue-green Hollywood Eco-Smurfs and Na’vi wannabe’s, we are NOT living on a green Pandora that needs rescue from the evil RDA mining company.  Humanity will not be saved by mythical noble savages or a forced return to a primitive life style.  It took most of the nineteenth century to formulate the Laws of Thermodynamics.  It took most of the twentieth century to apply those laws to the benefit of society.  There will be no solutions to problems in the twenty first century that do not comply with these laws.

Curiously missing from the Climatology degree plan is any mention of Thermodynamics.  Avoidance of these Laws must give license to break these Laws.  Thus clouds can have a negative factor during the day, with their pesky ‘albedo’ effect reflecting sunlight back into space and then just hours later have a positive effect by blanketing the warmth at night….a reflector or greenhouse at the whim of a Climatologist.

Climatologist can ignore the specific heat and thermal mass of the entire planet and provide a computer model PROVING that the trace human portion, of a trace gas, in the trace portion of the Earth mass that is the atmosphere, is the single greatest climate forcing factor.  They can then empower this three atom molecule the unique ability to radiate in a reverse flow in opposition to all proven Thermodynamic Laws.  This is lawless behavior, which is by definition, criminal behavior.

SOURCE 






Trump Administration Proposes Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rule for U.S. Manufactured Aircraft

The administration of President Donald Trump has announced it is imposing standards for aviation greenhouse gas emissions on domestic airplane manufacturers, a move intended to comply with the standards set by the U.N.’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), of which the United States is a member.

The global standard was adopted by the ICAO governing council in 2016, and endorsed by all ICAO member states as an international standard in 2017.

The announcement to set domestic limits on aviation emissions was a bit unexpected from the Trump administration, which has generally avoided international agreements on greenhouse gas emissions.

The standard announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires all airplanes designed by domestic airplane manufacturers on or after January 1, 2020 to produce 4 percent less carbon dioxide emissions below levels emitted by aircraft in 2015. The standard also applies to all airplanes in production on or after January 1, 2028—giving U.S. manufacturers a five year longer period to meet the international standards than the 2023 date set by the ICAO. Airplanes currently in-use or that come into use during the intervening period are not required to meet the new standard.

The proposed rule is now undergoing the required review process and comment period, which must be completed before it is finalized and becomes official.

EPA Response

In EPA’s press release announcing the aviation emission proposal, the agency notes ICAO’s standards were developed “with significant input from EPA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and U.S. and international aviation industries.”

Three quarters of the aircraft manufactured in the United States are sold internationally, thus EPA says it proposed making the standard a domestic requirement to ensure consistent standards across the world, and to allow U.S. manufactured planes to continue to compete in the global marketplace.

“This standard is the first time the U.S. has ever proposed regulating greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. “Along with the Affordable Clean Energy and Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicle rule, this is the Trump Administration’s third major action to take sensible, legally defendable steps to regulate greenhouse gases, while safeguarding American jobs and the economy.”

Environmental Groups Want More

Shortly after the rule was proposed, a variety of environmental groups claimed the rule does not go nearly far enough to combat so-called climate change.

Reuters reports the Center for Biological Diversity’s (CBD) climate legal director, Clare Lockwood, called the proposed rule a “toothless proposal does nothing to meaningfully address the serious problem of airplanes’ planet-warming pollution.” Lockwood went on to say in a CBD press release the rules “are ‘too weak’ to address the severity of the climate crisis.”

Airplane Manufactures Support Regulation

Despite the fact that airplane manufacturers were already improving fuel efficiency and reducing emissions, having improved fleet fuel economy by 40 percent between 2000 and 2019 and having cut carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent over the past 30 years, Airlines for American (A4A), an aviation industry trade group, said in a press release the rule was necessary to keep international markets open for U.S. manufactured airplanes, because “without the standard, the aircraft would not be able to get critical certifications necessary for international operations.”

“EPA’s proposal to adopt ICAO’s fuel efficiency and CO2 certification standard for newly manufactured aircraft is good for our industry, for our country and for the world,” Nancy Young, A4A vice president, environmental affairs, said the organization’s press release. “Although the U.S. airlines are already driven to be highly fuel- and carbon-efficient, this stringent new emissions standard will help U.S. airlines make a green industry even greener.”

This rule promotes the domestic aircraft industry while also protecting the environment, said Bryan Watt, a spokesperson for Boeing, according to the New York Times.

“[The rule] a major step forward for protecting the environment and supporting sustainable growth of commercial aviation and the United States economy,” Watt said.

Unnecessary, Slippery Slope

It is unclear why a federal regulation is necessary to certify manufacturers meet the ICAO standards, says H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., a senior fellow for The Heartland Institute.

“If American airplane manufacturers are worried they will lose access to foreign markets unless they comply with the international standards, they can just adapt their practices and comply,” said Burnett “Nothing prevents manufacturers of any products sold internationally from meeting a foreign country’s particular standards or international standards in general, indeed they adapt their products and packaging to local markets all the time, so, they don’t need a U.S. law or regulation forcing them to do so.”

Burnett says, aside from being unnecessary, by adopting federal regulations restricting greenhouse gas emissions for the first time ever on the aviation industry, the Trump administration is setting itself up to be forced to impose ever greater emission regulations on a broad range of industries to fight climate change, which Trump has referred to as a “hoax.”

“It is shameful and discouraging that the Trump administration, of all presidential administrations one can imagine, is taking the lead on imposing greenhouse gas limits on aircraft manufacturers,” said Burnett. “There is little evidence humans are causing climate change and this decision plays into the hands of power-seeking climate alarmists, who can now say ‘if aviation greenhouse gas emissions are dangerous meriting restrictions, then cars, cows, factories, and power plants are even worse emitters, so the Trump administration should adopt stricter targets on those rather than rolling back emission reduction plans set under former-President Obama.’”

SOURCE 





EPA Prioritizes Superfund Cleanup Sites Over Climate Change

Not long after the Trump administration made cleaning up Superfund sites a priority for the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler turned his attention to a century-old neighborhood built for steelworkers that sits atop soil with dangerously high levels of lead and arsenic.

Cleaning up the 1,700 residential properties on Pueblo’s southside was originally scheduled to take more than a decade, but Mr. Wheeler and then-Region 8 Administrator Doug Benevento cobbled together the additional $15 million per year needed to cut that timeframe by more than half.

“When I started with the agency in 2018, we knew what the problem was here, we knew what the solution was, but it was slated to take 10-15 years, and I just looked at that and said, that’s too long,” said Mr. Wheeler, who took over as EPA administrator last year. “We needed to get it done faster, and we are.”

The Colorado Smelter site now is slated to be completed in three to five years, part of the administration’s push to fast-track projects on the Superfund National Priorities List where “people live, work and play,” he said.

“This is a new approach we’re taking to Superfund,” said Mr. Wheeler, who toured the site Monday with EPA and local officials. “We’ll have it done by 2023, which means a couple of generations of children will be able to play in their backyard without fear of lead-contaminated soil.”

If the EPA under President Barack Obama had its eye on the sky, seeking to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases in the name of combating climate change, then the agency under President Trump has its hands in the dirt, digging into the unglamorous and often unheralded work of scrubbing polluted properties and spurring community revival.

“There are too many examples of sites around the country that have become stuck and lingered on the list for years, well beyond when they should have been cleaned up and delisted,” Mr. Wheeler said. “President Trump wanted to get these delayed sites unstuck.”

The Superfund National Priorities List is daunting, with 1,335 sites covering everything from old military arsenals to abandoned mines, but Mr. Wheeler said the agency was able to remove all or part of 27 projects last year from the list, the most in one year since 2001.

Even though neighborhoods of single-family homes like Bessemer hardly fit the Superfund stereotype, “they’re not as rare as you would think,” said Mr. Benevento, now associate deputy administrator, who cited the recent remediation of homes near a former vermiculite mine at the Libby Asbestos Site in Montana.

Expediting the Colorado Smelter cleanup creates a domino effect for other Superfund projects, he said.

“By doing this more quickly, we’re saving money for the taxpayer,” Mr. Benevento said.

SOURCE 






Heatwaves Are LESS Frequent and Severe

Heatwaves during recent decades remain far less frequent and severe than was the case during the 1930s – nearly 100 years of global warming ago, reports a new topical summary at the website Climate at a Glance. When climate alarmists react to annual summer heatwaves by claiming they are being caused by global warming, people interested in the truth now have a concise, compelling source for rebuttal.

According to Climate at a Glance: U.S. Heatwaves, a majority of each state’s all-time high temperature records were set during the first half of the 20th century – approximately 100 years of global warming ago. Also, the most accurate nationwide temperature station network, implemented in 2005, shows no sustained increase in daily high temperatures in the United States since at least 2005.

Heatwaves have always been a natural part of the American climate. Global warming will not put an end to heatwaves. However, global warming is not making heatwaves much worse, either, if at all. That is because the lion’s share of the Earth’s modest warming occurs during winter, at night, and closer to the poles.

The graph below illustrates how heatwaves were much more frequent and severe during the 1930s. Also, data show recent heatwaves are well within historically typical ranges.

Like all other aspects of the well-funded Climate Delusion, claims that global warming is causing more frequent and severe heatwaves wilt under the heat of scientific scrutiny.

SOURCE 

***************************************

For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

*****************************************



No comments: