David Attenborough....

jamesmorgan

the_flying_pig wrote: »

that's right.

we can't have infinite growth, clearly.

but if we can have several hundred or thousand years' worth of growth then, well, should we really be spending a lot of time worrying about what happens after that?

The key question then is how long do we need to sort the problem out. Imagine a jar of bacteria that double in size every minute. When the jar is full, the bacteria run out of resources and all die. If it takes an hour for this to happen when should the bacteria start worrying? If they felt they should start to do something when the jar is 12% full then they only do so when they are 3 minutes away from total annihilation. By then they have probably run out of time to sort the problem out.

The timescale are obviously larger for the human species but the same principles apply. By the time we have noticed there is a problem it is probably too late to address it.

The one silver lining is that whilst we have been experiencing exponential growth in populations there is some evidence that it may be slowing down. The reasons for this are complex but appear to be due to self-regulation and are strongest in countries with high population densities with high standards of living (eg Hong Kong, Japan, Germany). It may be that as the cost of raising a child increase, the birth rate declines. This is the economic view of self-regulation - as we use up the planet's resources, they increase in price, so people ration what they use (and one way is to have less children). It remains to be seen whether this approach would be fully effective.

However, whatever we do decide to do, the head in the sand approach is unlikely to be the right one.

DervProf

Conrad wrote: »

The point he is missing is that Humankind will adapt, synthesise new resources, produce fuel from engineered bacterium, invest in straight to solar (instead of second hand solar contained in fossil fuel), grow protein in the lab, invest in multi storey farms, find alternate synthetic resource replacements, geow on floating platforms and underground, invest in all manner of unimaginable technologies and so on.

And live happily ever after ?

Another point is that Humankind has a habit of messing things up, then correcting the mistake afterwards. I do hope your predictions become reality, because when oil runs out, or even starts to run out, there's going to be a rather large void in our energy supplies.

DervProf

Harry_Boyle wrote: »

Perhaps you should start your own forum and just allow yourself to post, then you'll not have the inconvenience of people pulling you up when you make a glaringly incorrect statement or observation?

Yes Graham, make sure you own up to glaringly incorrect statements.

Harry_Boyle

DervProf wrote: »

And live happily ever after ?

Another point is that Humankind has a habit of messing things up, then correcting the mistake afterwards. I do hope your predictions become reality, because when oil runs out, or even starts to run out, there's going to be a rather large void in our energy supplies.

Coincidently, I have just posted this on the Green and Moneysaving forum:

"A record amount of electricity has been generated by wind energy in Great Britain, according to National Grid.

The new high was reached on Sunday morning, when wind generated more than 5 gigawatts for the first time – more than 12% of the nation’s electricity needs for industry, businesses and households – enough to power more than ten million British homes.

It’s the first time that wind energy has exceeded the 5 gigawatt threshold in Britain.

RenewableUK’s Deputy Chief Executive Maf Smith said:

“This new record proves that Britain is generating an increasingly significant amount of clean electricity from wind. The quantity of low-carbon energy that wind is feeding into the grid is continuing to surge upwards. We’re set to generate at least 15% of the UK’s electricity from wind by 2020.

As well as creating tens of thousands of green-collar jobs, and the wider environmental benefits, wind gives us another very important advantage – energy security. The UK can take control of the way we generate our power by using a secure, natural, local source of energy rather than relying on imports of expensive fossil fuels from unstable parts of the world. Wind as a crucial part of our energy mix and is becoming more important as extra onshore and offshore capacity is added to the system.”

In fact, the total amount of electricity generated from wind in the UK is even higher. A further 2.5 gigawatts of wind capacity, which is connected to local and regional electricity networks, is not metered. This extra output isn’t recorded by National Grid officials because most of it usually serves the local area rather than being fed into the grid nationwide."

Not a complete solution, but a step in the right direction and at a time before oil starts to run out.

If we move to hydrogen based fuels for transport:

"The solar reactor is capable of using sunlight to increase the heat inside its cylindrical structure above 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Zinc oxide powder is then gravity fed through 15 hoppers into the ceramic interior where it converts to a zinc vapor. At that point the vapor is reacted with water separately, which in turn produces hydrogen."

Vast tracts of desert can be used to house solar reactors, generating hydrogen. Something I would imagine the rulers in the Middle East are looking at with interest to allow them to keep their hold on global energy markets.

In addition, several research facilities around the world are looking at various additives that either allow hydrogen to be used safely from existing petrol pumps or allows hydrogen to be added to existing fuels to improve their efficiency (and obviously reduce the demand on these fuels).

As I said earlier, a lot of research and development is taking place - but if people don't take an interest then they won't know about it. Even worse is the call that the Human race 'stops' doing research because 'we have everything we need'. Far from it.

grizzly1911

Harry_Boyle wrote: »

I think you're missing the bigger picture. These tools start out as frivolous but then get used in business. My company uses smartphones for video conferencing so that we don't all have to travel miles for meetings - saving time and energy. We also use ipads and other tablets to access business software for employees who travel (such as the sales team).

If you go back to the dawn of home computing when hobbyists were building their own ZX80s and ZX81s and then moved onto mass produced computers such as the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad PCs, I dare say that some people thought that was a frivolous waste of time, but look where we are now.

It wasn't long ago that Silver bugs were on here saying that the Earth was running out of silver because of industry using it's superior conductivity for use in solar panels, etc. Now we have Graphene which is a man made material and is superior to silver for high conductivity and low power loss.

Graphene will probably be used in consumer electronics initially because you can sell a lot of units quickly to cover the initial developments costs, but then it will show up in all sorts of things - just like computers have (CAT scans, robotic surgical equipment, etc.)

If we have all we need and should stop developing stuff, then pop along to an Oncology ward at your local hospital and tell them that we're just 'being greedy' trying to advance our knowledge.

I'd suggest you take more of an interest in science, you might think that nothing has changed in computing in the last 5- 10 year, but that's because you're speaking from a position of ignorance. As usual.

You are correct and technology does have many uses and advances continue to help us in so many ways..

The point I took from GD was that soo much of this is wasted.

The current Buzz is tablets, every body is encouraged to have one or look like a pariah. We are pressured to constantly upgrade at great cost and waste of resource for minimal gain.

It is great that technological breakthroughs advance us, the question is does everybody on the planet need it in their face, day in day out, upgraded every 18 months?

grizzly1911

Harry_Boyle wrote: »

Coincidently, I have just posted this on the Green and Moneysaving forum:

"A record amount of electricity has been generated by wind energy in Great Britain, according to National Grid.

The new high was reached on Sunday morning, when wind generated more than 5 gigawatts for the first time – more than 12% of the nation’s electricity needs for industry, businesses and households – enough to power more than ten million British homes.

What time on Sunday morning and for how long?

Will it be blowing at 19:15 on Monday for the all important Corrie break cuppa demand? Or at 02:00 on Tuesday to refill the pumped storage facilities used to even out surges in demand?

DervProf

Harry_Boyle wrote: »

In fact, the total amount of electricity generated from wind in the UK is even higher. A further 2.5 gigawatts of wind capacity, which is connected to local and regional electricity networks, is not metered. This extra output isn’t recorded by National Grid officials because most of it usually serves the local area rather than being fed into the grid nationwide."

Not a complete solution, but a step in the right direction and at a time before oil starts to run out.

I think we may well need a lot more wind turbines and some breezy weather to produce enough energy to fill the void when oil runs out.

CLAPTON

A gigawat is a measure of power and not a measure of how much electricity was produced.

Two years ago we had a brillant period round xmas with a high pressure belt over the whole UK.
Snow on the ground and billiant clear blue sky.
Freezing cold of course.
Amount of wind driven electricity produced over this period = zero watt hours.

That doesn't mean that wind power can't reduce the fossile fuel used a bit but its not a lot.

I see no reason to rejoice in 'green jobs' being created as these are mainly in addition to existing power worker jobs.
more jobs = higher prices and lower productivity.

Harry_Boyle

grizzly1911 wrote: »

What time on Sunday morning and for how long?

Will it be blowing at 19:15 on Monday for the all important Corrie break cuppa demand? Or at 02:00 on Tuesday to refill the pumped storage facilities used to even out surges in demand?

Here is some analysis lifted from another website:

"No idea how it compares, but I am a bit upset that they are quoting GW rather than GWh. You can work it out from their comments on how it was calculated:

1. National Grid states that on Sunday 3rd February a new record of 5058 megawatts (5.058 gigawatts) of electricity was generated from wind, representing 12.28% of overall generation.

2. RenewableUK has observed that over a two-hour period from 10:30am to 12:30pm on Sunday 3rd February, total metered wind output in Great Britain exceeded 5GW, reaching a peak of 5.058GW at 11:30am. Metered wind output exceeded 4GW over a ten hour period from 5:30am to 3:30pm.

So lower bound would be greater than 96 GWh and upper bound would be less than 120 GWh

There are no figures on the National Grid website for last Sunday, but there are for the same Sunday over the last 4 years.

Generation was had a mean of 39.56 GW, or 949.44 GWh.
The min was 29.05 GW and the max was 48.97 GW.

The range was between 37.92 GW and 40.28 GW or 910 GWh and 967 GWh.
As a percentage of total generation that is somewhere between 10 and 12.4%

So the claim that 12% was from wind last Sunday seems very valid to me. "

Harry_Boyle

grizzly1911 wrote: »

You are correct and technology does have many uses and advances continue to help us in so many ways..

The point I took from GD was that soo much of this is wasted.

The current Buzz is tablets, every body is encouraged to have one or look like a pariah. We are pressured to constantly upgrade at great cost and waste of resource for minimal gain.

It is great that technological breakthroughs advance us, the question is does everybody on the planet need it in their face, day in day out, upgraded every 18 months?

Do you personally have a tablet? Do you update your phone/PC/tablet every 19 months?

Is the entire planet?

Come now, let's not start building strawmen in order to win arguments. We're better than that.