Science Rant, Not politics: Can CO2 cause "Climate Change?"

[freeski]

If elected Cankle would have used executive orders to force clean energy on industry. Energy is intertwined with defense and global power. If Cankle had succeeded with her energy agenda there is a good chance a couple of years down the road we would not be able to quickly ramp up the arms industry if needed.

[GSKI]

If elected Cankle would have used executive orders to force clean energy on industry. Energy is intertwined with defense and global power. If Cankle had succeeded with her energy agenda there is a good chance a couple of years down the road we would not be able to quickly ramp up the arms industry if needed.

Exactly. An economically and therefore militarily weak US would be VERY BAD for the environment unless you think the deaths of tens of millions in a world war would be a net net benefit. Some do! Clinton failed because she failed to campaign in a few states that got their jobs stripped due to globalism and tough US environmental laws that led to their manufacturing jobs being relocated to other countries without our strict environmental and labor laws and free trade agreements that allowed them to import their finished goods to the US. Those people would have voted for anybody other than Clinton and they did. Who would have thought Trump would actually win Pennsylvania.

[Woodsrider]

If elected Cankle would have used executive orders to force clean energy on industry. Energy is intertwined with defense and global power. If Cankle had succeeded with her energy agenda there is a good chance a couple of years down the road we would not be able to quickly ramp up the arms industry if needed.

Exactly. An economically and therefore militarily weak US would be VERY BAD for the environment unless you think the deaths of tens of millions in a world war would be a net net benefit. Some do! Clinton failed because she failed to campaign in a few states that got their jobs stripped due to globalism and tough US environmental laws that led to their manufacturing jobs being relocated to other countries without our strict environmental and labor laws and free trade agreements that allowed them to import their finished goods to the US. Those people would have voted for anybody other than Clinton and they did. Who would have thought Trump would actually win Pennsylvania.

Please explain how dirty energy benefits the military? Energy is cheap right now due to supply and demand economics. Not policy.

[Bubba]

If elected Cankle would have used executive orders to force clean energy on industry. Energy is intertwined with defense and global power. If Cankle had succeeded with her energy agenda there is a good chance a couple of years down the road we would not be able to quickly ramp up the arms industry if needed.

Exactly. An economically and therefore militarily weak US would be VERY BAD for the environment unless you think the deaths of tens of millions in a world war would be a net net benefit. Some do! Clinton failed because she failed to campaign in a few states that got their jobs stripped due to globalism and tough US environmental laws that led to their manufacturing jobs being relocated to other countries without our strict environmental and labor laws and free trade agreements that allowed them to import their finished goods to the US. Those people would have voted for anybody other than Clinton and they did. Who would have thought Trump would actually win Pennsylvania.

Please explain how dirty energy benefits the military? Energy is cheap right now due to supply and demand economics. Not policy.

Please also explain what executive orders would've been issued and the legal authority under which such orders would've been issued.

[freeski]

Straight from the Cankle's site. She's talking about executive actions, anything she could get away
with and appointments of hacks to run EPA, etc. Congress didn't legislate closing coal plants. Regulations made them too expensive to compete.

"Generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America, with half a billion solar panels installed by the end of Hillary’s first term.
Cut energy waste in American homes, schools, hospitals and offices by a third and make American manufacturing the cleanest and most efficient in the world.
Reduce American oil consumption by a third through cleaner fuels and more efficient cars, boilers, ships, and trucks.

Hillary’s plan will deliver on the pledge President Obama made at the Paris climate conference—without relying on climate deniers in Congress to pass new legislation. She will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 percent in 2025 relative to 2005 levels and put the country on a path to cut emissions more than 80 percent by 2050."

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/climate/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Woodsrider are you counting natural gas as clean?

[Bubba]

Straight from the Cankle's site. She's talking about executive actions, anything she could get away
with and appointments of hacks to run EPA, etc. Congress didn't legislate closing coal plants. Regulations made them too expensive to compete.

"Generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America, with half a billion solar panels installed by the end of Hillary’s first term.
Cut energy waste in American homes, schools, hospitals and offices by a third and make American manufacturing the cleanest and most efficient in the world.
Reduce American oil consumption by a third through cleaner fuels and more efficient cars, boilers, ships, and trucks.

Hillary’s plan will deliver on the pledge President Obama made at the Paris climate conference—without relying on climate deniers in Congress to pass new legislation. She will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 percent in 2025 relative to 2005 levels and put the country on a path to cut emissions more than 80 percent by 2050."

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/climate/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Woodsrider are you counting natural gas as clean?

Any such orders would've been immediately challenged in court and tied up for years, just like the CPP, and any such executive actions would've failed legal challenge. That's one of those campaign pledges like build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Anyway, carry on this discussion in the political forum and leave this thread more to science.

[freeski]

Is there a Hillary thread over there?

Have a good fourth.

[Mister Moose]

I'm not sure I understand this rant GSKI. Domestic energy production grew under a democratic administration. 91% of US energy consumption is now from domestic production. The majority of non-domestic energy comes from Canada. It was the Republicans who started the war in the Middle East over oil.

It grew on private land and because of hydraulic fracking technology. On federal land, which is actually a huge part of the country, energy production was greatly curtailed under the Obama administration. Democrats want to ban fracking like Cuomo in New York who actually have. I expect him to do that when he runs for President. Most Democrats including Clinton voted for the Iraq war and only turned against it when things got difficult and they could use the suffering for political advantage.

Exactly. The world oil market price decline, and our growing energy independence, is in spite of the last administrations efforts, not because of anything it did. The growing vast supply of natural gas is a direct result of the Dakota drilling and exploration, which was the object of government and pop culture scorn.

Secondly, if the Iraq war was over oil, where's my oil well? Or your oil well.? Or any US government owned/commandeered oil well in Iraq? Iraq was over declining stability and a threatening, unpredictable and unstable dictator, not oil. Not that different than what we now face with North Korea in some respects.

[Mister Moose]

Come on Moose. Friction does more than generate heat. This is what Tribology is all about. Deformation of material due to frictional forces represents irreversible energy loss. I haven't tried it, but I am sure wear and and formation of dissapative structures during friction can be modeled by entropy production if you need to put it into thermodynamic terms.

From an energy point of view, friction does nothing else but generate heat. The fact that friction causes wear to mechanical components does not change where the energy goes.

Deformation, entropy, call it what you want, it does not affect the energy path. A worn bearing will take energy to repair, but does not store any energy. (An example of stored mechanical energy would be a compressed spring. Frictional losses are losses, not stored.) All the heat from the wear inducing friction you focus on dissipates... where? Into the metal, into the house. All conductive surfaces flow toward equilibrium. Heat from the fridge motor bearing friction flows to the room the fridge is in.


Entropy is a measure of randomness, not heat.

Back to the questions above.

A refrigerator cannot be 100% efficient. But this sounds like a fun thermodynamic riddle. I'll attempt a proof later.

Later: Thank you that was a fun exercise. I had forgotten about the ideal Carnot Refrigerator. Essentially, you cannot calculate the efficiency of a refrigerator so they call it the coefficient of performance. Theoretically, it is limitless. The closer the temperature of the hot and cold reservoir the higher the COP. Unity is when Tc=0.5Th. Since this is misleading, I put the energy source within the same boundaries as the refrigerator to calculate actual efficiency (ideal heat engine + ideal heat pump) and to get 100% efficiency the cold reservoir needs to be at absolute zero. The fun part is how this demonstrates how entropy works. Now that was purely theoretical using ideal parameters (adiabatic, isothermal, zero friction, etc). The calculations are based on the very limits of the physical world. Nothing can be better and reality is drastically worse. Again, I am not talking about the singular thermodynamic efficiency of just the refrigerator. I am talking about the total of the energy used to heat the house and run the fridge in the winter. You keep reverting to just the fridge.


I think I answered all your questions. Thank you. We're getting there.



Regardless, none of your questions changes the original questions as to whether a Freeaire system is more or less efficient that a standard system. If a standard system has the condenser outdoors, yes Freeaire is more efficient. If the standard system has the condesnser indoors, the heat is retained in the building, and the use of the building is primarily in the winter, no, Freeaire is less efficient. Based on my theoretical calculations, if the outside air of a Freeaire system is closer to the temperature of the walk-in cooler than the temperature of the lodge, than the Freeaire system is more efficient, e.g. less work is required. Again, efficiency of a reverse heat pump is misleading. Who brought up reverse heat pumps???

Since I answered your questions, please answer mine. Are you certain that the walk-in coolers in question had an existing condenser heat recovery system?

See all my comments above in green. I have no idea what the previous system was. I am stating that taking both building heat and walk-in cooler energy consumption as a related pair, indoor compressors and condensers that vent all their heat to the building is more efficient in total in the winter than venting building heat outdoors using the Freeaire system. The Freeaire system will lower electric use, but increase heating requirements by a larger factor. The Freeaire system vents heat outside the building envelope (and exchanges it for cooler air that doesn't need the compressor energy to do it), and saves electricity by doing so. But in the winter waste heat is good. With indoor compressor/condensers all the waste heat is captured by the building. Heat that is normally lost as waste is beneficial in the winter, and all of that normally wasted heat is less heat the boiler in the building needs to provide. That makes a big difference.

If the old system at Killington had outside condensers, all that transerred heat was being wasted all winter long. The better improvement was to move the condensers inside and warm the building with them. The one case Freeaire is more efficient is if you leave the original outside condensers outside, you will run them less, and save that electricity. But the far far better move is to bring the condensers inside. Obviously we are talking efficiency here, not cost of installation. Depending on rerouting of refrigerant lines, space available indoors in utility rooms, etc, cost may be prohibitive against net energy savings. The rehabbed bear lodge should locate all condensers indoors and retain that heat in the winter, with fans and an insulated exhaust duct for the summer.


Therefore, the Freeaire system is playing a 3 card monte game with energy savings at Killington, and while the electrical savings by themselves are notable, the total combined energy savings of both boiler and walk-in cooler by locating the compressor/condenser inside the building and not venting any heat oudoors (with exterior venting through ductwork for the few warm weeks) is more efficient. Freeaire needs to change their outlook to Saveaire.

I completely understand what you are proposing. I needed to perform the calculation to understand if you were right or wrong. The science and math is solid. You are mistaken. The refrigerator and the room it is located in is taken into account in my calculations. Yes the waste heat can be recovered in the room. But the heat pump efficiency drops off dramatically when it is exhausting heat into a room that is significantly warmer than the refrigerator. I agree, but it doesn't matter when counting total joules of energy consumed. You obviously would keep the condensers well ventilated into the building to avoid a significantly higher temp they operate in. But regardless of this, all heat stays in the building. The lack of efficiency with greater temperature differentials you quote only puts more heat into the building. More work is required to move the heat from cold to hot. The savings in fuel is minimal compared to the increased cost of electricity. You are going outside the discussion again. We are not talking about cost of energy, we are talking about which method is more efficient, ie which system wastes more unrecoverable energy. Prices of energy sources vary over time. Also, electricity, while more expensive, is greener than 100% propane derived heat as nearly half of VT electricity comes from Hydro. (and therefore contributes less CO² per joule) A combination Freeaire type system with ducting that diverts condenser air in or out depending on inside/outside air temperature/ humidity with advanced controlling would be the most efficient system. But the expense of designing that as a retrofit would be cost prohibitive. So in my educated opinion, Killington made the right decision. If disagree with me, run the numbers yourself. Math doesn't play shell games.

For either of us to discuss cost, we'd need to know the exact parameters of Killington before and after. That was not the discussion. My original assertion, and I still assert it is correct and that you have by now agreed with me, is that an indoor condenser/compressor system (such as a household refrigerator) wastes zero energy in the winter. All the electricity used by the refrigerator turns to heat, and all of the heat stays within the building envelope as you have agreed. Any heat (in the winter) from the fridge results in that much less heat the heating plant needs to deliver. Therefore all waste heat from the fridge is useful and contributes, not detracts from total energy used. The Freeaire system vents some heat outdoors. That results in an overall increase in net energy consumed. We are not talking cost of electricity vs propane. We are talking which system uses the least total energy. Energy is measured in joules, not dollars.

Killington is touting they saved many tons of CO² using the Freeaire system, but I'm saying that by merely locating the condensers indoors, they would expel even less CO² than with Freeaire. And again, with new construction like is going to happen at Bear Lodge, the opportunity is there to do so cost effectively. Save money and CO². Boom, Mooseaire.

[GSKI]

Secondly, if the Iraq war was over oil, where's my oil well? Or your oil well.? Or any US government owned/commandeered oil well in Iraq? Iraq was over declining stability and a threatening, unpredictable and unstable dictator, not oil. Not that different than what we now face with North Korea in some respects.

Though I agree with you in general the reason for US military involvement in the Middle East was economic and militarily strategic. US energy independence is a recent technological achievement that post dated that war. If it was not for energy resources we would happily let that part of the world grind themselves to dust in their intra religious conflicts as their failed failing cultures should so they can reform. That part of the world would never even have resources to exploit if western technology did not teach them how to get it out of the ground efficiently. Our involvement with them should be taking in the occasional refugee and letting them figure their way out of their mess. Thankfully due to US advanced technology like fracking we may be able to let them go f themselves and not cost many more US soldiers lives. Oh and your right if we were some evil normal historically imperialistic power we could have owned them and simply taken all their resources that we paid for with blood. Sadly we stayed in Iraq after demolishing them and tried to help based on the concept of the Marshall plan where we rebuilt Germany and Japan with great results. Unfortunately that does not work with savages as we have learned. They and their monstrous culture can all go to hell. We tried too many brave American soldiers died and tens of thousands are crippled. Frack till the cows come home if it helps keep us out of that mess.

AND on a more positive skiing note you all do realize than lower energy costs equals much more snowmaking. Energy cost is the primary consideration.

[Woodsrider]

For either of us to discuss cost, we'd need to know the exact parameters of Killington before and after. That was not the discussion. My original assertion, and I still assert it is correct and that you have by now agreed with me, is that an indoor condenser/compressor system (such as a household refrigerator) wastes zero energy in the winter. All the electricity used by the refrigerator turns to heat, and all of the heat stays within the building envelope as you have agreed. Any heat (in the winter) from the fridge results in that much less heat the heating plant needs to deliver. Therefore all waste heat from the fridge is useful and contributes, not detracts from total energy used. The Freeaire system vents some heat outdoors. That results in an overall increase in net energy consumed. We are not talking cost of electricity vs propane. We are talking which system uses the least total energy. Energy is measured in joules, not dollars.

Killington is touting they saved many tons of CO² using the Freeaire system, but I'm saying that by merely locating the condensers indoors, they would expel even less CO² than with Freeaire. And again, with new construction like is going to happen at Bear Lodge, the opportunity is there to do so cost effectively. Save money and CO². Boom, Mooseaire.

This is getting silly. The calculations are simple. Do the math.

Based on your logic it is more efficient to use a motor boat than a sail boat purely so you can use the waste heat to heat the cabin on cold days.

Also, since cost plays no factor in your logic, Killington should dump propane heat and use 100% efficient electric resistance heating.

I am not sure why it is so hard for you to recognize that using a compressor to heat indoor space is a poor use of energy. For your own home try running dehumidifiers to heat it all year long and let me know how that works at reducing energy. Maybe add a few refrigerators in case you get chilly.

[rogman]

Ignoring generating and transmission losses electric heat is 100% efficient. A heat pump (effectively what the Freeaire system is) is more "efficient" than that because it moves (heat) energy, it doesn't create it. Mr Moose: long past time to wave the white flag.

[Mister Moose]

Disagree, but continuing will just be circular.
In other news,

As Beijing Joins Climate Fight, Chinese Companies Build Coal Plants


...new data on the world’s biggest developers of coal-fired power plants paints a very different picture: China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade. These Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world, some in countries that today burn little or no coal, according to tallies compiled by Urgewald, an environmental group based in Berlin

Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries, according to Urgewald’s tally, which uses data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker portal. The new plants would expand the world’s coal-fired power capacity by 43 percent.

Shanghai Electric Group, one of the country’s largest electrical equipment makers, has announced plans to build coal power plants in Egypt, Pakistan and Iran with a total capacity of 6,285 megawatts — almost 10 times the 660 megawatts of coal power it has planned in China.

The China Energy Engineering Corporation, which has no public plans to develop coal power in China, is building 2,200 megawatts’ worth of coal-fired power capacity in Vietnam and Malawi.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/clim ... d=tw-share" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Big Bob]

If Killington was serious about saving energy they would use the waste heat from the compressors used for snowmaking to heat the lodges or the grand when they are running and use the propane when they are not. The Keyser Energy propane bobtail truck is parked in front of the KBL Lodge a lot!! Other ski area do this already.

[Bubba]

If Killington was serious about saving energy they would use the waste heat from the compressors used for snowmaking to heat the lodges or the grand when they are running and use the propane when they are not. The Keyser Energy propane bobtail truck is parked in front of the KBL Lodge a lot!! Other ski area do this already.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to recall seeing signs on lift supports about the resort's use of waste heat from compressors being used to do just that.