Climate in the 21st Century

Will Humankind see the 22nd Century?

  • Not a fucking chance

    Votes: 41 28.3%
  • Maybe. if we get our act together

    Votes: 35 24.1%
  • Yes, we will survive

    Votes: 69 47.6%

  • Total voters
    145

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
if you put a series of satellites in geosynchronous orbit, they'll stay there, if you put a huge solar sail half way between the Earth and the Sun, wouldn't the same solar wind that would erode the dust cloud blow the disc away from the sun? it would have to have some kind of propulsion to remain in place, which seems quite impractical.
Yup. Shame you couldn’t tack it upwind like a sailing ship.
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
if you put a series of satellites in geosynchronous orbit, they'll stay there, if you put a huge solar sail half way between the Earth and the Sun, wouldn't the same solar wind that would erode the dust cloud blow the disc away from the sun? it would have to have some kind of propulsion to remain in place, which seems quite impractical.
I'm not an engineer so someone else will have to work out the details. I'm not all that concerned as by the time it gets bad enough to affect me I'll be pushing up daisies if they can survive what's coming and that's a moot point right there.

:peace:
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
same, but … I have kids. I’m invested.
I have two boys and 4 grandkids and I do feel sad for what they may have to put up with. Bit guilty too but it's the people on top that knew this would eventually happen that should shoulder most the blame IMO.

No matter how you look at it the planet's population needs to be reduced as we are hanging on by a thread now and it is nature's way that when a species overloads it's environment disease, famine or something else will balance the scales. Human sperm production seems to be rapidly falling so maybe this is mother nature's way of slowing population growth or is it just the horrible franken foods and all the chemicals we all injest whether we like it or not. I'm thinking it's our toxic diets myself.

Our whole western society is based on continuous growth to run it's economies and that's been known to be unsustainable for a good long time now but is still the mantra.

It has been interesting to watch it all unfold I must say.

:peace:
 

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
It has been interesting to watch it all unfold I must say.
:peace:
The entire world economy will crash eventually. It is an entirely artificial construct, kept at an unhealthy, unsustainable pitch for decades.
It's inevitable, no complex system ever runs smoothly for it's entire existence. Every adjustment, every manipulation to stave it off will just make it worse when it finally does collapse under it's own weight.
I'm teaching my grand kids how to do leatherwork, how to carve wood and stone, how to do rough carpentry, without power tools...
people with skills will always have something to trade.
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Belt is better for audio, j/s

I could not find how much mercury that mirror used. You should be able to spin it out to 30-40 cm if you had a plaster mold/ bowl nicely parabolized.
I think I have safer projects to work on. :)

I have all sorts of things from my time working as a chemist in a hazardous waste disposal plant. I should get everything packaged away nicely and safely so that should I pass the wife can call the fire dept. and let them take it for disposal. Mercury is one of the safer ones.

:peace:
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
I think I have safer projects to work on. :)

I have all sorts of things from my time working as a chemist in a hazardous waste disposal plant. I should get everything packaged away nicely and safely so that should I pass the wife can call the fire dept. and let them take it for disposal. Mercury is one of the safer ones.

:peace:
I would be fascinated to know some of the others.
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
The entire world economy will crash eventually. It is an entirely artificial construct, kept at an unhealthy, unsustainable pitch for decades.
It's inevitable, no complex system ever runs smoothly for it's entire existence. Every adjustment, every manipulation to stave it off will just make it worse when it finally does collapse under it's own weight.
I'm teaching my grand kids how to do leatherwork, how to carve wood and stone, how to do rough carpentry, without power tools...
people with skills will always have something to trade.
The economy is certainly a complex balancing act and I'm shit with accounting so can't do much but fearfully watch. Since turning 65 I'm the most financially stable than I've ever been since leaving home at 17. So many jobs in my life and long periods of unemployment.

I have pretty good DIY skills and plenty of hand and power tools for wood or construction as well as mechanics and am proficient in using them all. I've worked in a lot of jobs that taught me the skills but no one around to pass them on to.

Oooh. Nature of Things is on called Apocolypse Plan B: Hacking the Sun. About ways to cool the planet with Dr. David Suzuki. He's retiring from the show soon and I hope his daughter takes it over. She's a lot nicer to look at than old Dave but he's aged well and is in his late 80s now I believe. Met him on Wreck Beach in Vancouver when I was 17. He was there with a bunch of students male and female and all of us were naked. I had a bag of pot and they had acid so we shared and I got sunburned to a crisp when I later fell asleep on my back. Us gingers tend to burn easy.

:peace:
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
This will just spur American and European battery manufacturing and could lead to tariffs on Chinese cars. Battery factories and their supporting chemical and mining industry infrastructure are already spring up all over America and Europe using a variety of chemistries, and India is getting into the sodium battery manufacturing in a big way after buying UK Faradion who developed the sodium-based cells.

 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
I would be fascinated to know some of the others.
Not even sure what all I have tucked away. 1lb of sodium metal in a rusty can of oil and about half that of lithium metal. Litre of 96% sulphuric acid and half that of nitric. Made my own calcium and silver nitrates with that. A few pounds of potassium permagnanate(sp) and a jar of pot. persulphate both strong oxidizers. All sorts of little jars of stuff. Just kind of followed me home from work. :)

:peace:
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Not even sure what all I have tucked away. 1lb of sodium metal in a rusty can of oil and about half that of lithium metal. Litre of 96% sulphuric acid and half that of nitric. Made my own calcium and silver nitrates with that. A few pounds of potassium permagnanate(sp) and a jar of pot. persulphate both strong oxidizers. All sorts of little jars of stuff. Just kind of followed me home from work. :)

:peace:
I fear insidious poisons more than oxidizers and fuels. As a youngster, I had some sodium. Good times. Nitrogen iodide was a favorite plaything.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
It's not just gas stoves! Another reason to go EV and green, the reduction of urban pollution, trees can help a lot too, by cleaning the air urban canopies provide shade thus reducing AC energy usage, not to mention a cooler more pleasant environment. Say you own a high-tech company where people use their brains regularly, this might be something to think about!

 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
It's not just gas stoves! Another reason to go EV and green, the reduction of urban pollution, trees can help a lot too, by cleaning the air urban canopies provide shade thus reducing AC energy usage, not to mention a cooler more pleasant environment. Say you own a high-tech company where people use their brains regularly, this might be something to think about!

Not news to me. I've known about urban pollution and it's effects on brain function for a good decade at least. I've never lived in a city since Calgary for 6 years back in the late 70s - '82 when we still had leaded gas and asbestos in brake linings. I was polluting my brain with much more fun things back then so didn't even think about that stuff. :)

:peace:
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Let's say with a combo of solar and wind with a home battery bank, a typical home with a 4kW generating capacity could on average generate 2 kWh or operate at 50% capacity for 20 hours out of 24.

The average home powering a small EV would use around 10,000 kWh/year, less if heated by a heat pump and with an efficient water heater. So, you would only need to produce around 2 kWh for 20 hours a day with a small solar/wind turbine combo to be completely energy independent with a good home battery bank. There are a lot of single-family homes in America that could do this and reduce grid demand significantly while having free energy for 90% of their transportation and all of their home use. The balance between wind and solar would depend on location and climate, but between the two most homes could squeeze a consistent 2kW out of a combo of wind and solar. With cheap home battery banks and EVs, more than oil and gas companies will feel consumer competition, utilities will too. Home generation will only become cheaper and more feasible with cheap solar panels and batteries, the addition of EV charging from home will add an incentive for many.



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The two most electricity-demanding appliances in the average American household are water heaters and electric furnaces, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2015 Residential Energy Consumption Survey. The average home uses a little more than 3,000 kWh of electricity each year on heating the air, and another 3,000 kWh on heating water, meaning an electric car would require at least a little more electricity than it takes to run each of these appliances in the average U.S. home.

But one reason why this claim needs context is because not all appliances are created equal. There are some appliances that use more electricity than many electric vehicles.
 
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