Newsgroup sci.environment 103835

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In article <9f7cc$53ad.1b2@HERMES>,
   B.Hamilton@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton) wrote:
>
>Absorption of Solar Energy in the Atmosphere: Discrepancy 
between
>Model and Observations.
(BIG BIG CUT)
I'm glad to see the effort to match up models with 
observation.  Ultimately, the models should match the current 
"boundary condition" (our current point in time) before any 
extrapolation into the future is attempted.

In article <323B6AD9.630C@facstaff.wisc.edu> Don Libby  writes:
   > 
   > charliew wrote:
   > > 
   > >    Don Libby  wrote:
   > > >How about using the hydrogen to enrich methane up to butane
   > 
   > snip
   > 
   > > You would also have to invent a way to keep all radicals in
   > > this state (the radical state) long enough to stick them
   > > together into the form you wanted.  At present, no know
   > > technology can do what you are suggesting.
   > > 
   > > Have a good day.
   > 
   > Glad I asked before I sold the farm and moved to Texas to 
   > become a hydrogen-enriched gas tycoon!  I must admit I 
   > dropped out of chemistry after highschool - all the freshman 
   > sections were full when my number came up in the registration 
   > lottery.  I have read of a technology to enrich methane 
   > though, by removing contaminants from bio-gas I suppose.
   > 
   > On another tangent, I think it was something I read from 
   > McCarthy on hydrogen powered vehicles, to the effect that 
   > hydrogen easily leaks through the walls of any container.  
   > What about those zeppelins (Led or otherwise) - the gas must 
   > have stayed in the bag long enough to get across the 
   > Atlantic, no?
I don't think you read that on my Web page.  Hydrogen is leaky,
e.g. if you put hydrogen in a pipeline not designed for hydrogen, then
it is likely to leak.  However, there are plenty of materials that can
contain hydrogen.
On a previous thread someone mentioned the explosion of a zeppelin.
Zeppelins were invented by a German Count Zeppelin before WWI.  A
Zeppelin is a rigid airship, i.e the gas is contained in a tank,
usually of aluminum.  This contrasts with a blimp in which the gas
inflates fabric bags.  Zeppelins are slow compared to airplanes, but
zeppelins were made that can cross the Atlantic in commercial flights
before airplanes could do it commercially.  The flew at low altitudes,
and I remember the speed as being about 80mph.  The Germans pioneered
them, but in the U.S. the Navy used them.  The big hangars at Moffett
Field on SF Bay in California were for rigid airships.
The big disaster was the explosion of the German Zeppelin Hindenburg
in 1936 at Lakehurst, New Jersey after crossing the Atlantic.  The
crew and passengers were killed.
Early zeppelins used hydrogen, but helium is almost as buoyant and a
lot safer, since it is not inflammable.  The commercial source of
helium was the U.S., and the U.S. at some point refused to sell helium
to Hitler Germany.
Zeppelins are very susceptible to turbulence, and the U.S. Navy had a
spectacular crash (the Macon was it?) even though it was using helium.
Rigid airships were abandoned, but blimps were used during WWII,
especially for anti-submarine work.  I believe the only current use of
blimps is to carry advertisements.
The energy religion has given rise to proposals to revive the airship.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/

In article <51f5s0$c3b@morgana.netcom.net.uk>, Iain Rowan
 writes
>
>It is a question that has troubled both me and my wife at those times
>when our lives have been particularly empty, or when we have been
>particularly drunk ('why don't you see any more white dog shit? And
>the Clangers, now that's what I call proper telly not like this modern
>crap, and football's not as good as it used to be, bugger me is there
>no gin left etc ad literal nauseam).
[Cut]
>
>I would hazard a guess that it has something to do with the
>composition of dog food.
>
Very likely - dogs probably used to eat only bones, hence the large
amount of calcium would produce white s*it.
Modern dog foods are much more meat-based, and have oil etc, which will
tend to make more "natural-looking" moist turds.
-- 
Frank Erskine
Sunderland
http://www.g3wte.demon.co.uk/

In article <323ad701.1676084@pubnews.demon.co.uk>, Mr R chew
 writes
>Horse faeces , Cat faeces,Cow faeces,Donkey faeces, are also a health
>hazzard but there are no laws that cause the owners of these animals
>to follow them around with a plastic bag and pick up after them WHY
>the total discrimination agains DOGS and DOG owners in this stupid
>country .
because all too many here think if it's from the us of greed it's great
and so they pick up all they can from there including idiot laws like
that one.
>>
>>
>
tbt
-- 
| Bruce Tober - octobersdad@reporters.net - Birmingham, England            |
| pgp key ID 0x9E014CE9. For CV/Resume:http://pollux.com/authors/tober.htm |
| For CV/Resume and Clips: http://nwsmait.intermarket.com/nmfwc/tbt.htm    |
|                                                                          |
| "Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our   |
| liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the|
| First Amendment protects." -- three wise federal judges                  |

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In <51fc6v$6sc_005@pm2-98.hal-pc.org> charliew@hal-pc.org (charliew)
writes: 
>In article <51esgs$ekf@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com>, 
>jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw) wrote:
>>In <50pmc4$9ea@news1.io.org> yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) 
>writes: 
>>>There's no ecological crisis? No species being destroyed?
>>>
>>>You are BLIND.
>>
>>There are species being destroyed, but there is no 
>ecological crisis.
>>
>>The one species that matters is prospering and 
>proliferating;
>>*its* environment is improving - as proved by its 
>lengthening
>>lifespan.
>>
>>The reduction in biodiversity is not, per se, a Bad Thing:
>>though some species obviously are valuable and ought to be 
>>preserved, other species are harmful, and ought to be 
>destroyed.
>>
>>All microbial or viral diseases are instances of 
>>*excessive biodiversity*. So is all infestation
>>of people, cattle, crops, by parasites or 
>>pests or weeds. 
>>
>>Doctors put patients in a sterile environment:
>>it is more healthy. But a sterile environment
>>is one whose biodiversity is reduced almost to zero.
>>
>>Sterilizing the whole planet would perhaps be too
>>extreme; but reducing natural biodiversity to
>>a more controllable scale (while preserving samples
>>of the discarded species and varieties, for study) 
>>makes good sense.
>
>Your reply will get a lot more flames from others than from 
>me.  While I sympathize with the desire to eliminate all 
>human contagions, I also suspect that unpredictable things 
>may happen if this occurs.  In other words, there may be 
>things out there that are a real pain in the rear end for us, 
>that also somehow benefit other things in nature.  In fact, 
>I'll speculate quite a bit on this one: wouldn't it be ironic 
>if some of these parasites and/or diseases somehow encouraged 
>genetic diversity in us without our knowledge, and we went 
>out of our way to eliminate them?  If this was true, I 
>suspect the results would be potentially bad in the long run.
I agree that species extinction 
*can* have unpredictable results, some of them bad,
some of them dangerous.
On the other hand, continuous existence of so many
uncontrolled species presents dangers, too;
new epidemics such as ebola and dengue keep appearing,
and any day a worse one can sweep us away.
There is no safe course. Nature preserves species
and kills them with equal indifference.
Status quo is dangerous, so is change. 
But status quo is not really an option:
it is not stable, but transitional: we are in the
midst of change, attempting to stop it
would mean another change. We have changed
so many ways of life during our short span
as a species that we have no natural environment.
There is no safe haven, no ecological home for us.
There is no safe course; but which one is safer:
to resist change to the ecosystem, to keep
it as slow as possible - or to go full steam ahead?
I'll argue that the latter is safer.
Consider an abrupt change: a species is
extracted from its natural ecosystem
and transferred to a totally new one:
e.g., rabbits to Australia. Such
species often prosper far beyond their success
at home - meaning that their natural enemies
were more important than whatever parts of
the original environment they were well 
adjusted to; that their original ecosystem
was doing them more harm than good.
This may not be true of *all* the species
that are enduring an uneasy coexistence
within an ecosystem. Some of them are so
narrowly adjusted that a change would kill
them; but others are more opportunistic - and a 
change benefits them, as they shake off their
natural enemies, their parasites and competitors.
I believe we are that kind of species: we
are not well-adjusted to any  particular
environment, but adjusted to change itself, variety
itself. For this reason, I see change - even
*accidental*, collateral change - that we cause in the world,
with much more hope than fear.
But collateral change is just part of it;
other changes we make in the world are purposeful 
and increase our species' power, wealth, knowledge, 
skills, numbers: they represent *progress*.
If, then,  we accelerate progress, 
and simply ignore the "damage" - the collateral 
alteration of the environment - we will
benefit directly, and quite possibly indirectly,
too (because change per se is good for us). 
*And* we will be better able to cope with the
unforeseen dangers of the future - including
those caused by our own mistakes -
because we will then have more power and 
experience.
The safest course, then, appears to be this:
full steam ahead, and damn the torpedoes!

In article ,
   Frank Erskine  wrote:
>In article <51f5s0$c3b@morgana.netcom.net.uk>, Iain Rowan
> writes
>>
>>It is a question that has troubled both me and my wife at 
those times
>>when our lives have been particularly empty, or when we 
have been
>>particularly drunk ('why don't you see any more white dog 
shit? And
>>the Clangers, now that's what I call proper telly not like 
this modern
>>crap, and football's not as good as it used to be, bugger 
me is there
>>no gin left etc ad literal nauseam).
>
>[Cut]
>>
>>I would hazard a guess that it has something to do with the
>>composition of dog food.
>>
>Very likely - dogs probably used to eat only bones, hence 
the large
>amount of calcium would produce white s*it.
>Modern dog foods are much more meat-based, and have oil etc, 
which will
>tend to make more "natural-looking" moist turds.
I'm starting to understand why you "Brits" lost the war with 
the "States" back in 1776.  Most people are of the opinion 
that carnivores tend to eat meat, not bones!

David Wei wrote:
> the UV that is cutting through the OZONE layer.  You don't need a hole in the
> OZONE layer to get the UV to the ground, just as that a bullet can still punch
> a hole in a paper thin bullet proof vest.
Perhaps you should consider a different term--if it is paper-thin and a 
bullet can penetrate it it might as well be paper---it sure isn't 
"bulletproof"  ;-)
Aardwolf.

In article <323AEC2B.172A@facstaff.wisc.edu>,
Don Libby   wrote:
>How about using the hydrogen to enrich methane up to butane 
>or pentane?  I wonder if solar powered plants in the sun belt 
>could be used to drive electrolysis and enrich methane, which 
>could then piped north in conventional distribution systems. 
>Is this a practical way to transfer solar power from south to 
>north?
I'm not quite following this. Butane can be made quite nicely from
petrooleum, if that's what you want. But butane has a bit of a problem:
it tends to condense at a fairly high temperature, if I recall my
winterr problems with a butane lighter correctly.
If you mean to enrich methane by adding hydrogen gas and transmitting
it as a gaseous mixture, you run into all the previous problems I
mentiooned; the pressure is due to the total number of molecules
present, regardless of what they are.
-- 
    ********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
    *               Daly City California                  *
    *   Between San Francisco and South San Francisco     *
    *******************************************************

I am trying to find information about the current automotive tailpipe
emissions standards for new and in-service vehicles in India. I think
that the present standards are based on legislation introduced in April
this year. I would appreciate any pointers to sources of this information.
Regards
Michael Mundy 
-- 

Our planet last week is a weekly journal about natural disasters,
global pollution, and natural and environmental topics in common.
You can subscribe yourself for free to a weekly email copy. If you
are interested just sent an email message to:
                           dennis.van.paassen@tip.nl
                     and fill in "SUBSCRIBE" as subject
   You can also visit the State of the Earths Website at url:
          http://www1.tip.nl/users/t000208/index.htm
State of the Earth Magazine --- The Creators of Awareness!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tropical Storms
------------------------
The powerful thyphoon Sally killed at least 114 people and damaged
over 200.000 houses when visiting the Chinese Province of GuangDong.
Later the storm was headed towards the northern part of Vietnam, where
it killed one person and blew away 100 houses.
+++
The results of Fran's damaging Job did become visible last week.
In the State of North Carolina the material damage was estimated at
1.2 Billion Dollars. The other states surrounding North Carolina are
now recovering from some heavy floods. Caused by the enormous
amount of rain wich Fran brought.
+++
The hurricane Hortense visited Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and
other isles in the Carribean, killing at least 22 persons. At this
time it is headed to the eastcoast of the United states, but meteoro-
logists are pretty sure that it won't cause trouble anymore.
+++
Fausto brought storm and rain to the Bay of California and created
flood - situations in the desert areas of the southwestern parts of
the United States.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EarthQuakes
--------------------
The northern part of Japan was hit by an earthquake of 6.6 on the
scale of Richter. Also Tokio felt the shock.
+++
The Earth also moved in Taiwan (5.9), Indonesia (5.1), Nicaragua (5.1)
Chili (6.1), Germany (4.8) and south of San Francisco (3.8).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ozon Layer
--------------
The hole in the Ozon Layer above the south-pole, wich comes and
goes every year, is expected to set a new record this year. According
to testing results of a japanese team of scientists wich are based on
the south-pole, the hole is bigger than any year before. The concen-
tration of Ozon in our Stratosphere is decreased with 45-75 percent.
The hole is expanding very quick.... for example.... it did reach the
southern part of Argentina one month earlier than it usual does.
+++
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[technical difficulties enforced delay -- apologies for outdatedness]
kaliyuga
49960902 AA1  Hail Satan!!
tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (boboroshi):
#> you misunderstand.  humans have a natural urge to live.  the problem is
#> that this is over-emphacized by the establishment to the detriment of
#> the biosphere.  that is, the SAVE THE PLANET, KILL YOURSELF campaign,
#> arguably controversial, is a direct confrontation and opposition to
#> that procreationism.  a Yin to that over-emphacized Yang.  
#> 
#> given that a human receives the inner urges to self-terminate in our
#> culture now from Mom, we get tons of repressive enforcement to IGNORE
#> this directive.  we are told "it is a sin to 'commit suicide'".  we
#> are told that it is "a waste of a life", etc.  but there is nobody to
#> say "go ahead!  kill yourself!  there are really good reasons to do
#> it!"  we of the Church are taking on that job.
#> 
#> this maxim is not just about self-terminating now, as I have been trying
#> to make clear.  yes, the life you take now will likely add immeasurably
#> to the health of Mom.  but that depends on the life.  most people are so
#> immature in relation to the whole that they are merely assisting the
#> general destruction of the being which greater and greater numbers are
#> SAYING they love.  we say give this love some teeth.  put your love into
#> legal options.  don't just talk about how much you care about 'the Goddess'.
AshleyB@halcyon.com (Ashley Branchfeather):
# And what of our desire to procreate? We are actually part of Gaia, and
# that desire is also part of Gaia, just like every living species. 
as I have said before, the urge to procreate is very important, but it does
not deserve the emphasis which we are currently giving it in regards the 
human species (which amounts to a type of cancer).
# Some may feel the urge to commit suicide, but more people wish to 
# procreate. 
that is the problem, yes, and that the former is PROHIBITED BY LAW (at 
least attempts, as you can't prosecute a corpse :>), while the latter
is ENCOURAGED BY MEDIA AND RELIGION, despite ecological imperatives.
# Since the latter desire is almost entirely natural, 
both desires are 'natural'.  any desire which a 'natural'  being has
is 'entirely natural'.
# is it not the will of Gaia, if there is such a thing, to procreate?
obviously.  it is also the will of Gaia to self-terminate, but our stupid
species hasn't figured this out yet.  it could also be to Gaia's benefit
to put some limitations on this procreation.  if Gaia doesn't realize
this, then She better wise up, Janet Weiss!
# I certainly want to father children, and I feel it's my nature. As a
# nature worshipper, I consider it to be sacred, 
I'll never understand the "nature-worshipper" who supports procreation
but doesn't see the value in abstaining from progenating, promoting 
smaller families, generally, and opposing the empowerment of individual
self-termination.
# and to be attended to first since it is my own.
funny how it is a crime to 'harm' individuals but when we undertake
as a species or, through a lot of individual choices, to 'harm'
Gaia, whom nature-worshippers ostensibly want to serve, suddenly it
becomes a 'sacred duty' (whereas suicide is not -- e.g. sacred kings).
boboroshi
tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com
-- 
see http://www.hollyfeld.org/~tyagi/nagasiva.html  and  call: 408/2-666-SLUG!!!
 ----  (emailed replies may be posted)  ----  CC public replies to email  ---- 
 * * * Asphalta Cementia Metallica Polymera Coyote La Cuckaracha Humana * * * 

jw (jwas@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: If, then,  we accelerate progress, 
: and simply ignore the "damage" - the collateral 
: alteration of the environment - we will
: benefit directly, and quite possibly indirectly,
: too (because change per se is good for us). 
: *And* we will be better able to cope with the
: unforeseen dangers of the future - including
: those caused by our own mistakes -
: because we will then have more power and 
: experience.
: The safest course, then, appears to be this:
: full steam ahead, and damn the torpedoes!
Easy answers are rarely the best ones.
Plunge ahead with no thought to the consequences?!? Granted we won't be able
to anticipate everything, but that's no excuse for not making the attempt.
This is the sort of thinking that leads people to vote a straight Democratic
or straight Depublican ticket without considering each candidate on their
own merits because it's too much trouble to do the homework.
This is also the sort of thinking that I imagine lemmings must be using as
they plunge off a cliff. If we can't do better than that, we probably
deserve a similar fate.
-- 
	Kevin Morgan			|  Axiom of Infinity:
	San Jose, CA			!      An inductive (i.e. infinite)
	kmorgan@netcom.com  		|      set exists!

Reply test

Diar friends!
Now we deal with oil-products contaminants in 
groundwater and oil(hydrocarbons) pollution.
We are interested of libraries items and rewiew
about this subject.Gopher and Alta Vista couldn`t
satisfy us.( I misunderstanding it }>:(...).
Please, anybody help us to find references.
Does exist anywhere newsgroups or maillist about it?
We are open to discuss.  Thank You in advance.
Authors preferences: Barker,Cherry I.A.,Crow W.L.,
Kueper B.H.,Mackoy,Mendoza C.A.
P.S. E-mail is prefer.
                      Akif I. Ibragimov, Moscow,
                      Institute of Oil-Gas Problems.                     
-- 
     Regards,Dmitry V.Surnachev.Vice-director
     of JSC "Rospromproject".Tel.(095) 128-0582.
     E-mail dmisu@rosprom.msk.ru {:~)<

bmusgr@mednet.swmed.edu wrote in article
<323832CA.1802@mednet.swmed.edu>...
: There is no such thing as  standardization of design, which drives costs 
: up as each utility designs its own "custom" power plant.  This same 
: problem makes it very hard to learn from our mistakes and correct them.
See, the US should go CANDU. AECL sells the CANDU 6, a proven design which
has been built in Canada, Korea and Romania. The design is relatively
modular and one of the features of the design is that it allows countries
with a relatively limited technological infrastructure to go nuclear. The
use of natural uranium fuel means that you don't have to develop U
enrichment capabilities, for example.
There is such a thing as standardization of design; just not in the US.
Patrick Reid
pjreid@mi.net

Jeff Shaw (shaw@sun.lclark.edu) wrote:
: Hello,
: 
: I am doing research on climate cycles and was wondering if anyone had 
: sources I could go to that might claim artificial greenhouse warming 
: prevents a new Ice Age.  Has Sherwood Idso perhaps written something new 
: I have missed?  I would greatly appreciate any help.
: 
: Please reply here or to shaw@lclark.edu.
: 
: Thanks,
: 
I had wondered about that.
What mechanisms could there be?
To what extent does the ice age reinforce itself as it progress by the 
white ice reflecting away heat? So if the green house effect starts lots 
of ice bergs to break off and float around, it may hasten the ice age.
How does the ice age stop once the planet is so white and reflective? 
Haven't I read that even daisies may control heat reflection? Perhaps the 
deserts have to become revegetated before enough heat can be absorbed.
Who is looking at the reflectivity of the planet with deforestation and 
desertification and their effects on heat balance?
Brian Sandle

Frank Erskine  wrote:
>Very likely - dogs probably used to eat only bones, hence 
>the large amount of calcium would produce white s*it.
>Modern dog foods are much more meat-based, and have oil etc, 
>which will tend to make more "natural-looking" moist turds.
Perhaps it's the hard Leeds 'watter;, but Yesterday, I found 
that my garden path had been decorated with not one, but two, 
firm, slightly coiled, white dog stools.
So you -do- still white dogshit.
********************************
"I'm so hungry I could eat my earwax - and we
all know how horrid that tastes - right kids?"
 - phakq@leeds.ac.uk -

mohn@are.berkeley.edu (Craig Mohn) writes:
> 
> tobis@scram.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) wrote:
> 
> >Steinn Sigurdsson (steinn@sandy.ast.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
> 
> >: tobis@scram.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) writes:
> 
> >: > *to contemporary values*. (This, by the way, gives an enormous advantage
> >: > to the US and Canada, as the most energy intensive economies. One would
> 
> >: They are not. I really don't know how this urban legend
> >: keeps spreading. It is conceivable they are the most carbon
> >: emitting energy intensive economies, despite both having
> >: a significant nuclear and hydro base, don't have the
> >: numbers to tell.
> 
> 
> >Well, for now this is just a seem-to-recall, but I seem to recall
> >that total energy usage in Noth America exceeded other developed
> >economies by about 50% per capita, and the difference was dominated
> >by much larger transportation costs. Possibly the maintenance
> According to the Scientific American reprint volume "Energy for Planet
> Earth", whose materials were published originally in the Sept 1990
> Scientific American, Canada led the world in energy useage per capita,
> followed by the United States.
> 
> The following table is my rough approximation (based on the bar graph
> on page 6) of the annual per capita energy use (in equivalent barrels
> of oil).  Sorry for the round numbers, but I'm reading it off a graph.
> The year for which data was collected is 1988.  Better and more
> current information is probably available on the web.
> 
> Canada            ~45
> USA               ~41
> Saudi Arabia      ~35
> Sweden            ~31
> Michael Tobis appears to have remembered things correctly.
If this table were complete, then he might.
A barrel is about 1/6 m^3, or about 150 kg of oil, I believe.
(checked that, barrel of oil is apparently 42 gallons)
That is roughly 10^9 J of energy. So 40 barrels per capita
is 4d10/3.6d6 = 11,000 kWh per person per year.
The CIA lists US electricity mains consumption as 
11,236 kWh/person/year in 1993 - which is consistent.
Rule of thumb is 1/3 of energy consumption is mains,
1/3 is transport and 1/3 is industrial not mains electricity.
So, apparently Sci Am was only counting main electricity?
Sanity check: same source shows Canada at 16,133 kWh per person
per year, Saudi Arabia at 2,439 kWh per person per year
Sweden is 14,891 kWh per person per year
(so discrepancy here, maybe I underestimated energy
per kg of oil conversion - I assumed 6d6 J/kg).
Howver, Iceland uses 16,458 kWh per person per year,
and Norway is at 23,735 kWh per person per year - twice 
the per capita mains consumption of the US. Norway also has
heavy personal transport (low population density, rich
mobile population and long road corridors, also a large
shipping fleet), and they use a fair amount of off mains
energy sources in energy intensive industries.
Iceland is even more energy intensive relatively speaking,
since space heating does not show up in these statistics
and is a large energy sink.
So, I'm afraid neither Canada nor the US are at the top
in this one. Scientific American notwithstanding.
I suspect the Sci Am chart had a cut on the countries they
considered, I'll try to check at suitable opportunity.

John McCarthy wrote:
> 
> In article <323B6AD9.630C@facstaff.wisc.edu> Don Libby  writes:
snip
>    > McCarthy on hydrogen powered vehicles, to the effect that
>    > hydrogen easily leaks through the walls of any container.
snip
> Zeppelin is a rigid airship, i.e the gas is contained in a tank,
> usually of aluminum.  This contrasts with a blimp in which 
> 
I admit I misquoted you on the difficulty of containing 
hydrogen- I was referring to a thread in this group on 
hydrogen powered vehicles.  If aluminum tanks were good 
enough for zeppelins, why would they not work as gas tanks 
for hydrogen powered vehicles (is it a volume to surface area 
problem?)  Would hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicles need to 
carry a supply of hydrogen gas in the same manner that 
hydrogen combustion powered vehicles would?  I would guess 
that higher conversion efficiencies for fuel cells would 
require a smaller tank to go the same distance.
-dl

charliew wrote:
> >B.Hamilton@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton) wrote:
> >
> >Absorption of Solar Energy in the Atmosphere: Discrepancy between
> >Model and Observations.
> 
> I'm glad to see the effort to match up models with
> observation.  Ultimately, the models should match the current
> "boundary condition" (our current point in time) before any
> extrapolation into the future is attempted.
A sheltered view.  When I think of all the things that were invented
without knowing, that developed without theory, all for the sake of 
mankind - why do you think it should apply any differently when it 
comes to protecting the planet?  For the sake of a few dollars, for your
convenience?  We still don't have models to predict half the mechanisms
surrounding marine ecosystems, but we figured out we were slaughtering
the great whales beyond capacity.  Should we have waited until a model
brought us up to date?  That would have been a great story for the 
grandkids - "Well, we just couldn't find the right model so we kept on
hunting and that's why we can't find a blue or humpback whale anymore."
The same technologies and science that provide us with our creature
comforts, that allow us to have conversations on the internet, is the
same type of science in ethics and practice that indicate a very 
real problem with greenhouse gas emissions.  And you want to ignore 
the thousands of scientists working on this problem, the potential 
problems in the earth's climate, for the sake of industrial 
convenience?  Do you have such lack of faith in human spirit and 
ingenuity to be able to cope with reducing fossil fuel consumption, 
of improving energy efficiency? 
Sam McClintock
sammcc@nando.net
. . . In order to CRITIQUE the research, you must READ the research.

DaveHatunen wrote:
> 
> Don Libby   wrote:
> 
> >How about using the hydrogen to enrich methane up to snip
> If you mean to enrich methane by adding hydrogen gas and transmitting
> it as a gaseous mixture, you run into all the previous problems I
> mentiooned; 
snip
Yes I was completely wrong about adding hydrogen to methane 
in order to get butane - more carbon is what's needed of 
course.  My confusion derived from reading something about 
"hydrogen-rich fuel" and believing this to mean more hydrogen 
per molecule, rather than more hydrogen gas in the mix - just 
the product of an unprepared mind.
While we're on the subject, coal gassification is a feasible 
scheme for using hydrogen that gets around the pipeline 
problem by shipping coal to a site and then producing the 
hydrogen on-site to be consumed in a gas turbine or fuel 
cell.  The carbon or carbon-dioxide by-products would be in a 
manageable form to be sequestered, if indeed sequestration is 
manageable.  The less-efficient coal-to-electricity 
conversion would have to be off-set by the benefit of avoided 
CO2 emissions in order for the technology to be practical, 
but it appears to be more cost-effective than scrubbing CO2 
from flue gasses.  I wonder if CO2 sequestration would be 
more or less cost-effective than nuclear waste sequestration? 
-dl

On Sat, 14 Sep 1996 23:53:17 +0100, Frank Erskine
 wrote:
>In article <51f5s0$c3b@morgana.netcom.net.uk>, Iain Rowan
> writes
>>
>>It is a question that has troubled both me and my wife at those times
>>when our lives have been particularly empty, or when we have been
>>particularly drunk ('why don't you see any more white dog shit? And
>>the Clangers, now that's what I call proper telly not like this modern
>>crap, and football's not as good as it used to be, bugger me is there
>>no gin left etc ad literal nauseam).
>
>[Cut]
>>
>>I would hazard a guess that it has something to do with the
>>composition of dog food.
>>
>Very likely - dogs probably used to eat only bones, hence the large
>amount of calcium would produce white s*it.
>Modern dog foods are much more meat-based, and have oil etc, which will
>tend to make more "natural-looking" moist turds.
>-- 
>Frank Erskine
>Sunderland
>http://www.g3wte.demon.co.uk/
If You want "white" then there is some in our street at the moment but
I do agree it is very seldom seen these days but it is not extinct .

system@niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:
: When the switch for cars was being legislated  in the U.S. 
: as a result of heavy lobbying by car companies I thought
: that the concensus here was that it was a pretty stupid.
No, not so.  The chemical companies were against it at first, but they 
changed their minds when they saw all the scientific data.  Most gov'ts 
were against it at first, but they also changed their minds and signed 
the Montreal Protocol.  The scientific community is convinced, and 
awarded the scientists who first proposed this a Nobel Prize.
: 
: A few people were heavy proponants of using an ?ethane/propane?
: mixture that would have been cheaper and easier to work with.
Nope.  Highly flammable, and in a system (a/c) not designed to contain 
flammable substances, especially in a collision.

Lou Anschuetz (lou@yfn.ysu.edu) wrote:
: 
: Just a couple of points from my casual watching of this problem:
: 1) In some journals from England it has now been proposed that 
: cow burping is causing the ozone depletion through some action
: of the methane. Of course, between this and mad cow disease, there
: may be a connection :)
Wrong.  You're confusing the ozone depletion and global warming.  Any 
animal that digests cellulose produced methane from one end of their 
digestive system or the other, and methane is a greenhouse gas.  Has 
nothing to do with the ozone layer though.
: 
: 2) on a more serious note --- just bought a new fridge as we moved
: to a new house. Bought a Maytag, with the typical 10 year parts and
: labor warranty. Dealer informed me that we were lucky to be buying when
: we did as we were able to get one of the last units with R-12. The new
: units had gone to R-13 and Maytag test labs felt that this made the
: mechanics so unreliable (as I have seen in auto's also) that they
: were reducing the warranty to only year. The sales people were 
: fairly unhappy about all of this, even though in this shop the
: sales people owned the store and had their own maintenance staff
: (actually one of the sons of the owners). They would, therefore,
: disagree with the argument that they would be better off.
All car makers still offer the same warranty.  The fluid itself shouldn't 
cause more breakdowns if the compressor and fittings are properly engineered.
: 
: Anyone I talk to in the auto business feels that the new airconditioning
: systems would hurt sales due to their short lives and high 
: replacement costs. 
If this were true, the auto makers would reduce their warranty, wouldn't 
they?  And it costs no more to replace an R134a system with another one 
than it would cost to replace an R12 system with another one of it (less 
for the 134, actually, since R12 is now so expensive).  But even if true, 
isn't a few extra bucks for a car or refrigerator worth it if it saves 
the ozone layer?
: 
: But, more importantly, as the incidence of leakage is increasing,
: instead of decreasing as it was with R12, I suspect there will be worse 
: consequences to pay in the future.
Please cite ANY authoritative source that the incidence of leakage is 
increasing.  If you use proper fittings and materials for R134, it 
shouldn't leak any more than R12 did.
: 
: I'm *not* an expert on this, but have done studies of other 
: government responses to reported disasters, and every one so far
: has cost more in damage to lives and the planet than ignoring the
: problem would have done. 
Like?  We've saved lots of lives by cleaning up our water and our air.  
We've saved a lot of lives with safety equipment mandated in cars, with 
child safety seats, with food inspections, etc.
: Quickly implemented fixes by governing 
: bodies rarely solves a problem. I think some of this was presented on
: the recent "scaring ourselves to death" program.
: 
: In summary, I think we will find that we did not solve as many
: problems as we thought we did by banning R-12. Remember alar?
: Time will tell.
Well, if we wait like you want, it'd be too late.  The evidence is there, 
and it's overwhelming, that CFCs, such as R12, destroy the ozone layer.  
Again, read some articles in scientific journals.  You apparently rely on 
other, nonscientific sources for your "info."