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[Nickbat]

Once again, more dire warnings about our upcoming energy shortage. Indeed, from this site:

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/10/2_The_Energy_Crunch_Cometh.html

"The blackouts could begin as early as the week commencing November 10, for which the National Grid has warned “that the margin of spare capacity could be as slim as 0.8 gigawatts - the equivalent of one mid-sized coal-fired power station or the electricity consumed by a city the size of Nottingham.”

Will our government, or the"government in waiting" please make this issue a top priority?

FFS, why the dithering?  

[Martin_1962]

If a few shops turned their lights off overnight that would help

[Varche]

mmm, too busy giving out free theatre tickets to people likely to never go again.

The job is done now. The nuclear sites have been flogged off cheap to the Frogs who strangely aren't limited by the government to their % rises to the Uk consumer like they are in France or Spain. Our electric co only managed a staggering (to everyone here) rise of 11%.

No government likes to make long term decisions that are going to cost money today for something you will see the benefit of in 10 years time. Those sort of decisions should have been made by a seperate body.

In the meantime a good start would be to ask people to use less!! Switch off lights(not just in homes but in offices at night) when not in use, unplug transformers for charging mobiles, switch off TV's instead of leaving them on standby etc. It would be consumately easy to save 10% of daily use within a week. But wait, that wouldn't sit well with a society used to conspicious consumption.

varche

[Marks DTM Calib]

If a few shops turned their lights off overnight that would help

Some times not, often in the larger stores the capacitive effective of the flourescent lights are used to counter the inductive effective of the freezer/chiller motors for power factor correction.

Reality is that there are a number of private prime movers around the country that get called upon (e.g. in Stafford we had two large gas turbines for backup that coud feed the grid) and some major industrial sites go onto power saving for an hour or so (often happened at Alsthom Stafford to)

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

Once again, more dire warnings about our upcoming energy shortage. Indeed, from this site:

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/10/2_The_Energy_Crunch_Cometh.html

"The blackouts could begin as early as the week commencing November 10, for which the National Grid has warned “that the margin of spare capacity could be as slim as 0.8 gigawatts - the equivalent of one mid-sized coal-fired power station or the electricity consumed by a city the size of Nottingham.”

Will our government, or the"government in waiting" please make this issue a top priority?

FFS, why the dithering?  

Hi Nickbat. Now I know from your previous threads that you think that global warming is a myth.
But did you see the recent documentary that stated that in the past temperatures had risen by 5 degrees in one year (according to the ice cores ) and they think that this could happen again at any time with monumental consequencies.
I would be interested to hear your views on this..fact or fiction ?

[Kevin Wood]

In the meantime a good start would be to ask people to use less!! Switch off lights(not just in homes but in offices at night) when not in use, unplug transformers for charging mobiles, switch off TV's instead of leaving them on standby etc. It would be consumately easy to save 10% of daily use within a week. But wait, that wouldn't sit well with a society used to conspicious consumption.

Problem is, although the nut munchers like to bang on about mobile phone chargers and TVs on standby these actually take bu66er all power. Less than a watt in most cases (unless it happens to be Murdoch's Gay set top boxes that stay on all night using 20+watts so they can "phone home" ).

It's what we've come to expect as the basic things in life that take the majority of the power. Heating, hot water, water supply, street lighting, sanitation, fresh and frozen food, having any sort of industrial / commercial activity.

It's a little less easy to do without these. Granted savings could be made in some areas. Many offices are lit and air conditioned throughout the night, PCs left on, etc. Data centres take a lot of power and are, in some cases, half full of idle machines.

A marginal saving won't get away from the fact that our electricity supply network is decaying and needs investment.

We will, literally, have to wait until the lights go out, I suspect.

Kevin

[Drewomega]

In the meantime a good start would be to ask people to use less!! Switch off lights(not just in homes but in offices at night) when not in use, unplug transformers for charging mobiles, switch off TV's instead of leaving them on standby etc. It would be consumately easy to save 10% of daily use within a week. But wait, that wouldn't sit well with a society used to conspicious consumption.

Problem is, although the nut munchers like to bang on about mobile phone chargers and TVs on standby these actually take bu66er all power. Less than a watt in most cases (unless it happens to be Murdoch's Gay set top boxes that stay on all night using 20+watts so they can "phone home" ).

It's what we've come to expect as the basic things in life that take the majority of the power. Heating, hot water, water supply, street lighting, sanitation, fresh and frozen food, having any sort of industrial / commercial activity.

It's a little less easy to do without these. Granted savings could be made in some areas. Many offices are lit and air conditioned throughout the night, PCs left on, etc. Data centres take a lot of power and are, in some cases, half full of idle machines.

A marginal saving won't get away from the fact that our electricity supply network is decaying and needs investment.

We will, literally, have to wait until the lights go out, I suspect.

Kevin

Quite right Kevin! us fly boys know what we are talking about!!  
We need nuclear power stations now!! I have worked on nuclear, coal, power stations and fairy windmills and I know which one is the solution to this problem!! We need them built now!!!!  

[Nickbat]

Once again, more dire warnings about our upcoming energy shortage. Indeed, from this site:

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/10/2_The_Energy_Crunch_Cometh.html

"The blackouts could begin as early as the week commencing November 10, for which the National Grid has warned “that the margin of spare capacity could be as slim as 0.8 gigawatts - the equivalent of one mid-sized coal-fired power station or the electricity consumed by a city the size of Nottingham.”

Will our government, or the"government in waiting" please make this issue a top priority?

FFS, why the dithering?  

Hi Nickbat. Now I know from your previous threads that you think that global warming is a myth.
But did you see the recent documentary that stated that in the past temperatures had risen by 5 degrees in one year (according to the ice cores ) and they think that this could happen again at any time with monumental consequencies.
I would be interested to hear your views on this..fact or fiction ?

Hi Optimist<

I don't know which programme you watched, but rapid temperature changes are entirely feasible - and natural. Indeed Greenland warmed at a high rate between 1920-1930, about 50% higher than between 1995-2005.

http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Chylek/greenland_warming.html

Actually, there's an historical article here, which claims that Greenland warmed 10 degrees between 1913 and 1948.

http://theweatheroutlook.com/twocommunity/forums/t/19575.aspx

Of course, neither of these were caused by man-made emissions.    

Changes can be rapid, either up or down (and I know which I would prefer!). Can we stop such changes? No. Absolutely not. But we can adapt.

For a full guide to global warming claims, I recommend this site:  

http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

Must fly..off on the school run now!  

[MickAP]

Went into our local brand new B & Q store recently and it is a massive place. Couldn't help noticing all the lighting that they had on, even though the roof was letting in suffience light it was almost negative to have the lights on. Also they had an electrical dept with all lights  blazing, why can't they just switch them all off until needed.
It's the same with places like Currys isle after isle of TVs blazing out, and hardly anyone in the shop.
Then the government energy dept take out full page ads in the newspapers this week, costing god knows how much of tax payers money. There telling us to switch off that TV on standby or phone charger that's been left on, to save energy.

Mick

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Once again, more dire warnings about our upcoming energy shortage. Indeed, from this site:

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/10/2_The_Energy_Crunch_Cometh.html

"The blackouts could begin as early as the week commencing November 10, for which the National Grid has warned “that the margin of spare capacity could be as slim as 0.8 gigawatts - the equivalent of one mid-sized coal-fired power station or the electricity consumed by a city the size of Nottingham.”

Will our government, or the"government in waiting" please make this issue a top priority?

FFS, why the dithering?  

Hi Nickbat. Now I know from your previous threads that you think that global warming is a myth.
But did you see the recent documentary that stated that in the past temperatures had risen by 5 degrees in one year (according to the ice cores ) and they think that this could happen again at any time with monumental consequencies.
I would be interested to hear your views on this..fact or fiction ?

I watched this programme as well Optimist and noted what the scientists had concluded which was very interesting to say the least.  I also understand that the scientists involved in this research have established, using the evidence obtained from the ice core, that the 5 degree climate change happened within days and quote "within no more than a week" rather than the year you mentioned.  

It highlighted what other scientists have predicted could happen very quickly if sea currents, for us in the UK the Gulf Stream, were affected by rising temperatures and diverted further South.  The onslaught of fresh water in large volumes from the melting Artic with rapidly reducing salinity of the Atlantic could produce an ice age for the Northern hemisphere, and not for the first time by far.

It strikes me that whatever man does for the good or worse will be greatly overwhelmed by nature herself as has happened countless times over the history of this planet.  Blackouts could be the least of our problems, and I lived through the blackouts of the early 1970s.

[Nickbat]

Once again, more dire warnings about our upcoming energy shortage. Indeed, from this site:

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/10/2_The_Energy_Crunch_Cometh.html

"The blackouts could begin as early as the week commencing November 10, for which the National Grid has warned “that the margin of spare capacity could be as slim as 0.8 gigawatts - the equivalent of one mid-sized coal-fired power station or the electricity consumed by a city the size of Nottingham.”

Will our government, or the"government in waiting" please make this issue a top priority?

FFS, why the dithering?  

Hi Nickbat. Now I know from your previous threads that you think that global warming is a myth.
But did you see the recent documentary that stated that in the past temperatures had risen by 5 degrees in one year (according to the ice cores ) and they think that this could happen again at any time with monumental consequencies.
I would be interested to hear your views on this..fact or fiction ?

I watched this programme as well Optimist and noted what the scientists had concluded which was very interesting to say the least.  I also understand that the scientists involved in this research have established, using the evidence obtained from the ice core, that the 5 degree climate change happened within days and quote "within no more than a week" rather than the year you mentioned.  

It highlighted what other scientists have predicted could happen very quickly if sea currents, for us in the UK the Gulf Stream, were affected by rising temperatures and diverted further South.  The onslaught of fresh water in large volumes from the melting Artic with rapidly reducing salinity of the Atlantic could produce an ice age for the Northern hemisphere, and not for the first time by far.

It strikes me that whatever man does for the good or worse will be greatly overwhelmed by nature herself as has happened countless times over the history of this planet.  Blackouts could be the least of our problems, and I lived through the blackouts of the early 1970s.

Oh Lizzie, Lizzie. It's impossible to determine a week within an ice core. Secondly, we are talking about global average temperatures. On a local level, temperatures regularly change by more than 5 degrees in a week. As I noted before, the Arctic melted more in the 1920-1930 period than in the 1995-2005 period...and no one really noticed. Of course, the other thing that the alarmists go on about is rising sea levels due to melting ice caps. Remember that (aside from the fact that Antarctica is growing in size) the melting of sea ice cannot have an effect on sea levels (due to the relative displacement of the ice). It could only have an effect if ice on land melted and thus added to the total ocean volume.

The other thing to remember is that global temperatures are roughly back to where they were a hundred years ago (I say roughly because we are talking about fractions of a degree here - something which they couldn't measure years ago anyway).

The whole idea is to scare people and, in that way they are doing a  pretty good job. In contrast, the upcoming energy shortage is entirely man-made (and avoidable, which climate change isn't) and is very scary.  

[Nickbat]

Sorry, Lizzie, I forgot to mention the Gulf Stream:

For convenience, I have cut-and-pasted this (with the link shown at the end).

Myth #1: The Gulf Stream will fail if a massive outpour of freshwater will come out of Greenland glaciers due to increasing temperatures.

Answer: No, it most definitely will not. As explained by Carl Wunsch, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at the MIT in Cambridge, Mass. (USA), in a letter published on The Economist:

    The Gulf Stream is a wind-driven phenomenon (as explained in a famous 1948 paper by Henry Stommel). [...] Shut-off would imply repeal of the law of conservation of angular momentum [...] focusing on near-impossible Gulf Stream failure is an unproductive distraction

Myth #2: The Gulf Stream is responsible for the milder weather in the United Kingdom and part of Northern Europe than North American regions at similar latitudes.

Answer: No, it most definitely does not. As explained by Richard Seager, Senior Research Scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, in an article published on American Scientist:

    That the Gulf Stream is responsible for Europe’s mild winters is [...] nothing more than the earth-science equivalent of an urban legend.

See http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/gulf-stream-myths/ and links therein.

 

Cheers, Lizzie.

Nick

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Once again, more dire warnings about our upcoming energy shortage. Indeed, from this site:

http://web.mac.com/sinfonia1/Global_Warming_Politics/A_Hot_Topic_Blog/Entries/2008/10/2_The_Energy_Crunch_Cometh.html

"The blackouts could begin as early as the week commencing November 10, for which the National Grid has warned “that the margin of spare capacity could be as slim as 0.8 gigawatts - the equivalent of one mid-sized coal-fired power station or the electricity consumed by a city the size of Nottingham.”

Will our government, or the"government in waiting" please make this issue a top priority?

FFS, why the dithering?  

Hi Nickbat. Now I know from your previous threads that you think that global warming is a myth.
But did you see the recent documentary that stated that in the past temperatures had risen by 5 degrees in one year (according to the ice cores ) and they think that this could happen again at any time with monumental consequencies.
I would be interested to hear your views on this..fact or fiction ?

I watched this programme as well Optimist and noted what the scientists had concluded which was very interesting to say the least.  I also understand that the scientists involved in this research have established, using the evidence obtained from the ice core, that the 5 degree climate change happened within days and quote "within no more than a week" rather than the year you mentioned.  

It highlighted what other scientists have predicted could happen very quickly if sea currents, for us in the UK the Gulf Stream, were affected by rising temperatures and diverted further South.  The onslaught of fresh water in large volumes from the melting Artic with rapidly reducing salinity of the Atlantic could produce an ice age for the Northern hemisphere, and not for the first time by far.

It strikes me that whatever man does for the good or worse will be greatly overwhelmed by nature herself as has happened countless times over the history of this planet.  Blackouts could be the least of our problems, and I lived through the blackouts of the early 1970s.

Oh Lizzie, Lizzie. It's impossible to determine a week within an ice core. Secondly, we are talking about global average temperatures. On a local level, temperatures regularly change by more than 5 degrees in a week. As I noted before, the Arctic melted more in the 1920-1930 period than in the 1995-2005 period...and no one really noticed. Of course, the other thing that the alarmists go on about is rising sea levels due to melting ice caps. Remember that (aside from the fact that Antarctica is growing in size) the melting of sea ice cannot have an effect on sea levels (due to the relative displacement of the ice). It could only have an effect if ice on land melted and thus added to the total ocean volume.

The other thing to remember is that global temperatures are roughly back to where they were a hundred years ago (I say roughly because we are talking about fractions of a degree here - something which they couldn't measure years ago anyway).

The whole idea is to scare people and, in that way they are doing a  pretty good job. In contrast, the upcoming energy shortage is entirely man-made (and avoidable, which climate change isn't) and is very scary.  

I take your overall point, and those in the post of yours following this Nick .

Of course it is all opinions of individual scientist and their interuptation of the evidence in front of them, as in the field I study, History, where 12 historians can come up with 13 conclusions!!

However the ice core in question went from opaque to clear, interupted by regular bands of snow.  I am NO scientist that's for sure , but the scientist who was being interviewed explained that there had been a sudden rise of 5 degrees "within days" that was dramatic and "permanent", completely out of line with any 'normal' regular changes in the climate.  This was in the Iceland area where such temperature fluctations would not have been expected, as confirmed by the ice core's "record" of weather over thousands of years.

Like everyone else I suppose all we can do is be spectators to the 'experts' conclusions of the evidence, and of course always question when we can, but the evidence in this case was compelling.

So who really knows Nick?  I don't think anyone really does yet as nature, history, time and space seem to hold their secrets extremely well!

[Lizzie_Zoom]

In addition to my previous post Nick I would reiterate that it is the opinion of weather experts in general that many factors affect sea currents.  You are right of course that the wind drives them, but as I stated so does the salinity of the water itself, the rotation of the earth, and land mass directing them.

You may find this link very interesting as it is published by the BBC / Weather Centre specialists:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/impact/gulf_stream.shtml

which provides the following explanation of the Gulf Stream and the affects of climate change:

"The Gulf Stream
The world's oceans move constantly. Ocean currents flow in complex patterns and are affected by the wind, the water's salinity and temperature, the shape of the ocean floor, and the earth's rotation.

How does it work?
The gulf stream is one of the strongest ocean currents in the world. It is driven by surface wind patterns and differences in water density. Surface water in the north Atlantic is cooled by winds from the Arctic. It becomes more salty and more dense and sinks to the ocean floor. The cold water then moves towards the equator where it will warm slowly. To replace the cold equator-bound water, the gulf stream moves warm water from the Gulf of Mexico north into the Atlantic.

The gulf stream brings warmth to the UK and north-west Europe and is the reason we have mild winters. The average annual temperature of north-west Europe is about 9C above the average for our latitude."



This gives a different opinion by implication of the affects that certain natural or man-made changes can have on the sea currents.

[Nickbat]

Sorry, Lizzie, but it is impossible to identify a few days in an ice-core sample. I think the programme was referring to the Greenland High Res Ice Core Project:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5889/680

"The last two abrupt warmings at the onset of our present warm interglacial period, interrupted by the Younger Dryas cooling event, were investigated at high temporal resolution from the North Greenland Ice Core Project ice core. The deuterium excess, a proxy of Greenland precipitation moisture source, switched mode within 1 to 3 years over these transitions and initiated a more gradual change (over 50 years) of the Greenland air temperature, as recorded by stable water isotopes. The onsets of both abrupt Greenland warmings were slightly preceded by decreasing Greenland dust deposition, reflecting the wetting of Asian deserts. A northern shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone could be the trigger of these abrupt shifts of Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation, resulting in changes of 2 to 4 kelvin in Greenland moisture source temperature from one year to the next."

They talk of 1-3 years. I know of no higher resolution than that. Also, remember that these are "proxies" - in other words using the deuterium to measure precipitation, to measure temperature.

As for being a spectator to the 'experts'. No way, at least not within the mainstream media, at any rate. There are many 'experts' out there that think we are being fed falsehoods by the other 'experts'. I regard as a duty to myself to seek out the truth as best I can.