environment,energy,greenhouse,gas,carbon,dioxide,global,nuclear energy,clean energy,emissions,global climate change,environmental impacts, Nuclear Energy Can Save US: May 2009

Nuclear Energy Can Save US--America�s 100 nukes equal four million barrels of oil per day.


Billions of lives and civilization itself may be at risk from the Global Warming & End of Cheap Oil, Crisis. Rising sea levels and rising oil prices could be the end of civilization as we know it. The problem is so huge that the most powerful answer, many nuclear plants, must be deployed. Currently, America‘s 100 nukes deliver the energy of four million barrels of oil per day. Wind and solar cannot do the job, and may delay the real answer too long. Still, all kinds of clean energy, plus conservation, plus reducing deforestation, will be needed to help the poor half of the world, and for civilization to survive through this century.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Hints of a Cooler Earth from the Winter Just Passed

A report from an unknown (to me) Canadian source says that the Arctic Ice Cap expanded by 2 million square kilometers (700,000 square-miles) more in this winter than in the average of the last three winters. What impact this will have on the Arctic summer, minimum area of the ice cap, is not known (but we will know in a few short months). In the summer of 2007, the ice reached the lowest coverage ever recorded.

Per the National Geographic, the ice area at the end of summer for the last 28 years has been as follows (in million square-mile): 1980=3.01 / 1985=2.66 / 1990=2.39 / 1995=2.36 / 2000=2.43 / 2005=2.16 / 2007=1.67 / 2008 /1.81. In the 28 years, the end of summer ice has decreased by 40 %. This seems to show, without any doubt, that the Earth has been warming up. The culprit is most likely to be the CO2 from burning of fossil fuels.

A new situation may be developing; that is, a cooler planet because of reduced solar heat. A theory, new to me, was discussed in my last post. This theory supposes that since there was a significant world cooling, the Little Ice Age 300 years ago (1615—1705), coincident with the Maunder Minimum period of very low sunspot activity, the current low incidence of sunspots may predict a new ice age. It is hard to imagine how sunspot activity could effect Earth weather, and many scientists scoff.

Now, I have theory. I have not seen it anywhere, but it could easily be circulating. Per Spaceweather.com, of March 17, 2009 (it can be checked on their archive), Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) from the Sun are more scarce than sunspots. “When the sun is active, we see several such CMEs on a daily basis. Now, the rate is one per month. That’s very little solar activity.” CMEs were only discovered about 1972, using a cronograph on the OSO 7, Orbiting Space Observatory. Each CME involves
billions of tons of ejected material. Maybe the low sunspot activity 300 years ago, was only a visible marker that the sun was experiencing a period of very low CMEs, as it is now. A cooler Earth could be at hand.

PS: Check Twitter/ArcticSurvey. A British team (two men, one woman) attempted a 1000-km, three-month trek from Canada to the North Pole. They had to be airlifted out May 14, after 2.5 months, 460 KM. They must have met much more severe weather than expected. One phrase was, "Temperature is up to -25C so we will..."