1. Home
  2. Electronics Design
  3. hurricanes
  4. Page 3

hurricanes

Mmmm, all that charcoal will absorb toxins, plus the trace minerals in the ash content must be great! ;o)

Downside being, Fischer-Troph takes three tonnes of coal, burns one, and makes a bit over two tonnes of oil. It's not a very efficient process. Turning that into something edible like alcohol (ethanol is indeed a biological source of energy), acid (acetic acid is even more available, but don't forget energy-rich fatty acids, too) or sugar (???) would be even more steps processing, and could only be used to supplement the energy content of animal feed*.

Also, if cropland is zero-sum (notice it hasn't been; systems like this could continue the trend), ofsetting energy crops for actually delicious food crops is the same as eating coal, without the unpleasant aftertaste (or, lack of taste entirely).

*I suppose in a Soylent Green kind of future, the FDA might agree to supplement food squares with petroleum derivatives. At this time, I don't think there's any way to qualify something like that for human consumption? Example: industrial ethanol (i.e., petroleum derived) is more than pure enough (before denaturing, of course) to drink safely, but it's not FDA approved, so, no dice. AFAIK, anything sold as liquor can only be distilled from fermented mash, even if it's objectively more toxic (Fleischmann's vodka?) than such alternatives.

Still other ideas... some day it would be fantastic to see a catalyst which can turn electricity into fuel, for example, electrolytically reducing CO2 to methanol (which can then be processed as a petroleum feedstock). The process already exists -- the efficiency stinks. Electricity is even more inefficient to generate, anyway (the best power plants are 60% I think?), so one might further hope for a photon-to-fuel catalyst. Plants do this, but again, are rather inefficient (supposedly the best energy crops are around 2%?).

Tim

--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk. 
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com
Reply to
Tim Williams
Loading thread data ...

Pity about that. Increasing the CO2 content above 1000ppm (2.5 times more C O2 than we now have in open air) doesn't produce significantly faster growt h with the plants we've got around, and making the atmosphere pure CO2 is d amnably expensive (as you'd know if you'd read anything about CO2 sequestra tion).

Breeding plants that would do well with CO2 contents above 1000ppm might sh ift this boundary, but looking at fossil plants tells us that plants growin g at past times when CO2 levels were quite a lot higher adapted by having f ewer stomata in their leaves, trading off CO2 flow into the leaf against wa ter vapour flow out, which doesn't suggest that the plants themselves would metabolise CO2 much faster when exposed to more of it.

formatting link

seems to be saying that CO2 levels have typically been between 1000ppm and

2000ppm over most of last few hundred million years - pretty much since the re's been multi-cellular life on the planet - with occasional spikes over 2 000ppm.

The fact that the earth as a whole does fine with CO2 levels above 1000ppm isn't an argument for us to be complacent about rising CO2 levels. The most recent spike in CO2 levels saw a lot of mammalian species (amongst others) going extinct, and a lot of new species evolving to fill the gaps created by population crashes.

formatting link

Our ecosystem has spent the past few million years adapting to CO2 levels r unning between 180ppm (during ice ages) and 300ppm (during inter-glacials).

Forcing it to adapt to 400ppm is already producing quite a few extinctions, and pushing it further isn't going to help our ecosystem or our agricultu re.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

I heard an interview with a sort of paleo-forestry guy. He has studied tree rings and such and concluded that, in the couple of thousand years prior to

1800, about 10% of California forest land burned every year. They were smallish burns, basically brush fires, and the big trees, the pines and oaks and redwoods, survived... prospered, even, as competitors and pests were killed off.

Now that we are putting out fires, we get less frequent but much bigger fires. The California forest fire problem is man-made, but it's not about climate change.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
Reply to
John Larkin

Yep. Back when "clear-cutting" was the norm in the lumber business, we had very few major fires. Then the greenies came along. I always find it delightful when it's their house that burns down >:-} ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142   Skype: Contacts Only  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Of course. You always delight in the misfortune of others. You are a mean, nasty old git.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom timing and laser controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer 
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
Reply to
John Larkin

Schadenfreude is best enjoyed when the victim is the initiator of the problem. (Darwin-award-style :-)

As for you, if you don't knock off the nonsense, I'm going to beat the crap out of you with my cane >:-} ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142   Skype: Contacts Only  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

It was intentional. Larkin _is_actually_ the mean, nasty, senile old git here. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142   Skype: Contacts Only  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

The thing about that, was that fact was KNOWN at least 20 years ago.. The ads using Smokey the Bear were stopped due to the knowledge,i think.

Reply to
Robert Baer

Methinks you missed his point (by a mile).

Reply to
Robert Baer

His point is that he'd be delighted by someone's house burning down. I suppose their children dying in the fire would be an extra bonus for him.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com 

Precision electronic instrumentation 
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators 
Custom laser drivers and controllers 
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links 
VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro   acquisition and simulation
Reply to
John Larkin

You're mentally ill, go seek help. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142   Skype: Contacts Only  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Some species even require forest fires every year or at least every few years to survive.

Building houses in the forest that previously had forest fires at least once or twice a decade is asking for trouble.

Building houses on a floodplain and then people complain about being flooded at least once a decade.

Cutting down the forests in the mountains and then complain about floods downstream...

It is nice if you can blame "climate change" instead of your own stupidity :-)

Reply to
upsidedown

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.