The solutions to Global Warming include. . .

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Erasmus00

A friend of mine who is a nuclear engineer makes the claim that reactors that quench rather then runaway in an emergency situation are actually cheaper to build, though a quick google search finds no information on this idea. ...
-Will

This sounds like a PBR (Pepple-Bed Reactor) to me. I have brought them up as alternative to fossil fuel in some other thread, but can't find it just now.
Damned if ya do, damned if ya don't. And breathe 2,3,4...hold...

Pebble bed reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by wiki

A pebble-bed reactor thus can have all of its supporting machinery fail, and the reactor will not crack, melt, explode or spew hazardous wastes. It simply goes up to a designed "idle" temperature, and stays there. In that state, the reactor vessel radiates heat, but the vessel and fuel spheres remain intact and undamaged. The machinery can be repaired or the fuel can be removed. ...

[Michaelangelica]

Are China's new nuclear Reactors using pebble- bed technology?
I have the feeling that they are not??

Here is one GW problem solved before I knew it was a problem!

An Environmentally Friendly Approach To Ethylene
Submitted by News Account on 5 February 2008 - 12:36pm. Chemistry

Ethylene, the world's most commonly produced organic compound, is used many types of industries. Farmers and horticulturalists use it as a plant hormone to promote flowering and ripening, especially in bananas while doctors and surgeons have long used ethylene as an anesthetic and ethylene-based polymers are found in everything from freezer bags to fiberglass.

Its current production methods result in a number of greenhouse gases.
A new environmentally friendly technology created by scientists at Argonne National Laboratory may revolutionize creation of this compound by use of a high-temperature membrane that can produce ethylene from an ethane stream by removing pure hydrogen.

Says senior ceramist Balu Balachandran, “This is a clean, energy-efficient way of producing a chemical that before required methods that were expensive and wasteful and also emitted a great deal of pollution.”

Because the new membrane lets only hydrogen pass through it, the ethane stream does not come into contact with atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen, preventing the creation of a miasma of greenhouse gases – nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide – associated with the traditional production of ethylene by pyrolysis, in which ethane is exposed to jets of hot steam.
The world’s ethylene producers manufacture more than 75 million metric tons of ethylene per year, causing millions of metric tons’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions.

An Environmentally Friendly Approach To Ethylene | Scientific Blogging

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

Are China's new nuclear Reactors using pebble- bed technology?
I have the feeling that they are not??

Mmmm...don't forget to look before you feelp? In fact, China is pursuing PBR technology.

Wired 12.09: Let a Thousand Reactors Bloom

Originally Posted by Spencer Reiss

...To meet that growing demand, China's leaders are pursuing two strategies. They're turning to established nuke plant makers like AECL, Framatome, Mitsubishi, and Westinghouse, which supplied key technology for China's nine existing atomic power facilities. But they're also pursuing a second, more audacious course. Physicists and engineers at Beijing's Tsinghua University have made the first great leap forward in a quarter century, building a new nuclear power facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed reactor. ...

[Turtle]

Mind you that my suggestions require the assumption that anthropogenic CO2 did it in the conservatory with the wrench. To whit:

Declare a global moratorium on the floristry industry. The land used to grow flowers gets returned to use producing food or fuel, the waste of all the transportation delivering flowers is saved, and the demand for electricity coming from nasty ol' coal plants is reduced when the flower shops and their wasteful lights and refrigerators are shut down. People want flowers, they can darn well grow their own.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Mind you that my suggestions require the assumption that anthropogenic CO2 did it in the conservatory with the wrench. To whit:

Declare a global moratorium on the floristry industry. The land used to grow flowers gets returned to use producing food or fuel, the waste of all the transportation delivering flowers is saved, and the demand for electricity coming from nasty ol' coal plants is reduced when the flower shops and their wasteful lights and refrigerators are shut down. People want flowers, they can darn well grow their own.

1. Thanks. How many plants are on the drawing boards?

2 Flowers are pretty
What else are we going to give the girls?- Chocolates- same problem;
Diamonds no no no

[Boerseun]

Here's a very simple and common-sense solution to Global Warming.

Quit international tourism.

Think about it.

How well do you know your immediate surrounds?

The next overseas holiday you've planned, could be spent much better at home, investigating your own area. Local tourism also keeps your money in your community, you get to know your neighbours and fellow townsfolks a lot better, and you GET THOSE FILTHY DAMN AIRPLANES OUTTA THE SKY!

How big a percentage of the total of international airplane flights are dedicated solely to people on holiday, with more bucks than brains? STAY AT HOME! You'll get to meet your locals, save money, build up a sense of community, and contribute in a BIG WAY towards cleaning the atmosphere!

With the internet at hand, virtual tourism should be boosted. I know - I really want to see Greece, Italy, the Pyramids, etc., for myself. But right now, I think, we should prioritise more rationally than going oversees "because I can".

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Quit international tourism.

That's nothing! Let's quit global trade!

We don't need your stinking diamonds! Well, uh, maybe just a few....

The French are glad to die for love, they delight in fighting duels, but I prefer a man who lives, and gives expensive jewels,
Buffy

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Here's a very simple and common-sense solution to Global Warming.

Quit international tourism.

Think about it.

I agree, and I have. Have thought about it I mean, but neither have I ever flown internationaly. My thinking however went beyond just international tourism, and the particulars are back in post #73.

Common sense it is, but it is no less a bitter pill. Buffy on the other hand, goes beyond me in her sardonicism:

Originally Posted by Buffy

That's nothing! Let's quit global trade!

We don't need your stinking diamonds! Well, uh, maybe just a few.

While the diamond trade is a ridiculous waste, I do not mean to suggest all international trade be stopped. If we want to cross oceans by boat, then use sail boats. If we want to fly over them, then we should use electric powered helium airships.

The way I see it, if we are really on the verge of disaster than we better be taking drastic measures, and in spite of quaint proverbs on the nature of bread and circuses, the obvious place to start is with the extravagances.

[Michaelangelica]

I think with Virgin Airways now you can buy carbon offsets when you fly.

Also there is some weird scheme that planes could drop some garbage in the atmosphere to help cool the planet.
Anyone know the details?

People do not see any urgency in GW. It is going to take a few international cities to go first. At the moment is only a couple of unimportant pacific islands.

Terra preta is such a great scheme (and not just for slowing global warming).
It amazes and saddens me that it is not yet even on the radar.
I remember a lecture on "attitude change" where the lecturer said it was high status people who changed opinion and attitudes( eg doctors, celebs, etc)- others then followed . So I guess we will have to wait for Bush to have an epiphany?
I agree in the past we had time to wait for change eg "Please wash your hands before cutting me open doc!" 'Please don't smoke'. But even with these two examples it has /is difficult to change attitudes there is still a lot of backsliding. One big USA hospital recently cut its death rate from 10,000 patients a year to 1. just by enforcing and encouraging everyone to wash their hands (This IS the 21st century isn't it? Where is my TARDIS key?).
Look at how hard it is to change attitudes on Hypography.

For Buffy et al Are SA diamond mines near the coast?
Buffy have you seen W Oz "champagne diamonds? very classy sparkly and pretty
you could start acollection there are pretty pink ones, pretty yellow ones. One of each is surly not too much to ask?




Australian Diamonds
Argyle Diamonds - Library

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

I think with Virgin Airways now you can buy carbon offsets when you fly.

That scehme is nothing more than robbing Peter to pay Paul. Common sense says don't incur the debt in the first place.

Originally Posted by Micha

Also there is some weird scheme that planes could drop some garbage in the atmosphere to help cool the planet.
Anyone know the details?

I have heard boron, but can't find it right now; I heard aluminium dust too and here's a bit on that. >> Engineering Menu

Originally Posted by geocrisis

There was an interesting article in the NY Times this week on possible geo-engineering solutions to the global warming problem. The story revolves around a paper that Paul Crutzen (Nobel Prize winner for chemistry related to the CFC/ozone depletion link) has written about deliberately adding sulphate aerosols in the stratosphere to increase the albedo and cool the planet - analogous to the natural effects of volcanoes.

The contrails themselves are cooling the planet, and I heard a guy saying recently that the new efficient jet engines no longer have black unburned particulates to act as nucliae(sp) for ice crystals, but rather white ash which is making contrails even more reflective. >> Global Dimming

Originally Posted by Micha

People do not see any urgency in GW. It is going to take a few international cities to go first. At the moment is only a couple of unimportant pacific islands.

I'm old enough, as I believe you should be Micha, to react to few urgencies but my own to find a WC. I'm greener than Kermit, but not because of climate change.

I call for a boycott, then ban, on fast food restaurant kid's toys. Talk about a waste of resources!