We've Lost So Much Antarctic Ice It's Causing A Dip In Earth's Gravity

[Yorkshire pud]

If we could get past the human factor (building stuff on the cheap, terrorism, and corporate interests who always want to build big. Good luck.) I would think small reactors but many more of them would be the way to go. (Think nuclear ice-breakers, air-craft carriers, and submarine size reactors with similar security.) That size could still power a small city but could be protected enough (or possibly even mobile to an extent?) Until we get the fusion thing for reliable power-generation possible. Of course, even if we could eliminate terror threats we would still have to deal with the waste which is a big concern.

Yes, there's a reason why small nuclear plants are on ships and not land based...the very reason you touched on. Security. Cost wise the cost of having several small nuclear plants as opposed to one large one that can feed the grid for a large area would be prohibitive. Security, infrastructure, expertise, engineers etc...

[albrecht]

Yes, there's a reason why small nuclear plants are on ships and not land based...the very reason you touched on. Security. Cost wise the cost of having several small nuclear plants as opposed to one large one that can feed the grid for a large area would be prohibitive. Security, infrastructure, expertise, engineers etc...

Yeah, I figured that but, hey, if we ever get peace we could use the units already deployed and if the "warming" is true than we won't be needing those nuke-powered ice-breakers so that frees up some already paid-for units.

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

Yes, there's a reason why small nuclear plants are on ships and not land based...the very reason you touched on. Security.

Fucking terrorists.  They're almost as bad as those "libs."

[Yorkshire pud]

Yeah, I figured that but, hey, if we ever get peace we could use the units already deployed and if the "warming" is true than we won't be needing those nuke-powered ice-breakers so that frees up some already paid-for units.

Yeah, because transferring nuclear piles and re commissioning them from their intended purpose to another one is so bloody child's play. It's why all the de-commissioned nuclear subs in Murmansk harbour have all found a new home in little towns and villages throughout Russia. No, not really...among one 'incident' a pile went critical and blew out of the top of the hull and landed after it's trajectory took it skyward to the other side of Murmansk harbour. The rotting hulls are just lying there...

[albrecht]

Yeah, because transferring nuclear piles and re commissioning them from their intended purpose to another one is so bloody child's play. It's why all the de-commissioned nuclear subs in Murmansk harbour have all found a new home in little towns and villages throughout Russia. No, not really...among one 'incident' a pile went critical and blew out of the top of the hull and landed after it's trajectory took it skyward to the other side of Murmansk harbour. The rotting hulls are just lying there...

Who ever said it would be "bloody child's play?" But the reactor doesn't care if it is deep in the ocean or setting in some fjord and hooked up to the power-grid to a small town. Not that Norway, or maybe Scotland, these days need to worry about sources of power.) But I was just theorizing. Simply a matter of engineering a solution though; not a simple matter or "bloody child's play." But likely easier and cheaper than building huge facilities like Fukishimi or trying to solve their problems after a natural disaster! But, of course, really what is needed is more taxes, regulation, or banker-based carbon-trading scheme (ideally run by unelected bureaucrats and technocrats on a international level) because THAT will solve all the world's problems.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

I find it interesting that there seems to be a limit on how much clean energy we're allowed to have. We're allowed by the libs to pursue expensive, problematic energy sources such as wind farms. Yet if you say the word "nuclear" they go apeshit, and more interestingly the word "fusion" also causes a stroke (in liberals that even know about it) even though fusion energy is the ultimate in clean energy. It's opposed because it has the capacity to make cheap, limitless energy and that would allow the further expansion of human civilization. If the rank and file libs really understood how climate change response is really geared toward environmentalism and restricting human progress, liberalism as it is today would collapse.

I don't understand how you can say it's repressed.  Governments have poured huge amounts of money into fusion research for over half a century, and have yet to develop a stable self-sustaining reactor.  It's not repressed, it's just not practical yet and it's old news.  Once we do develop it, it will enjoy the same growth curve as wood, coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear fission have each displayed -- only slowly displacing other energy sources over a span of decades.  That's just how it works.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

Dammit, my resistance of trolling this thread is futile!

Okay, back to the original premise, about melting ice causing dips (other than Noory) in gravity.  I give you that mass affects gravity (did I mean effects?) and I am sure that a bit melting somewhere or another would affect gravity at that specific location, but at what SCALE?

Heavens to Betsy!  That sort of claim is about as reliable as the claim that if the Earth's CO2 levels rise too much more, we'll have bubbling seas of Coca-Cola (again at what scale do we need to see CO2 overtake N2 to make that sort of claim even addressable?)  or if Coke is not your thing 7up?

No evidence, no graphs nothing but a video:


Original 7-Up "Un-cola Nuts" ad

Not the one I was looking for, but it serves...

Yeah it's a silly headline.  Local variations do not equal a global reduction in gravity unless somehow the ice is sublimating and the evaporate is reaching escape velocity, which it is not.

[Yorkshire pud]

Who ever said it would be "bloody child's play?" But the reactor doesn't care if it is deep in the ocean or setting in some fjord and hooked up to the power-grid to a small town. Not that Norway, or maybe Scotland, these days need to worry about sources of power.) But I was just theorizing. Simply a matter of engineering a solution though; not a simple matter or "bloody child's play." But likely easier and cheaper than building huge facilities like Fukishimi or trying to solve their problems after a natural disaster! But, of course, really what is needed is more taxes, regulation, or banker-based carbon-trading scheme (ideally run by unelected bureaucrats and technocrats on a international level) because THAT will solve all the world's problems.

Oh, I thought we were talking about the practical engineering problems and limitations of nuclear piles; not the perpetual rant about the usual right wing obsessions that really try and simplify the world to basic stuff. i.e. If you can afford it Hooorayy.. if you can't well, tough, but I'm not helping you sucker.

[albrecht]

Oh, I thought we were talking about the practical engineering problems and limitations of nuclear piles; not the perpetual rant about the usual right wing obsessions that really try and simplify the world to basic stuff. i.e. If you can afford it Hooorayy.. if you can't well, tough, but I'm not helping you sucker.

Originally, I guess, this thread was about an alarmist article saying the melting ice is effecting our gravity (reminds me of shows back in the Art days. It is "the Quickening" I say! Was Stan Deyo involved in writing that article, I wondered.) Bring on the taxes! Save us all!

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

If we could get past the human factor (building stuff on the cheap, terrorism, and corporate interests who always want to build big. Good luck.) I would think small reactors but many more of them would be the way to go. (Think nuclear ice-breakers, air-craft carriers, and submarine size reactors with similar security.) That size could still power a small city but could be protected enough (or possibly even mobile to an extent?) Until we get the fusion thing for reliable power-generation possible. Of course, even if we could eliminate terror threats we would still have to deal with the waste which is a big concern.

Actually a number of companies, including Babcock & Wilcox, are developing community sized reactors.  The media has misrepresented them as being much smaller than they really are though.  They are still good-sized installations -- not something you're going to stick in your backyard or basement as some have claimed.

I prefer Ballard's community sized fuel cell which runs on methanol or hydrogen.  It's the Vancouver company that had so much hype a few years ago building fuel cells for cars.  They could never get the price down on that, so now they build utility installations including one that can be set on the back of a tractor-trailer and trucked to where it's needed.

[SciFiAuthor]

I take it all the companies, engineers, scientists, shareholders in said companies who are involved in all you've mentioned are 'libs'? Makes sense, because as we all know, the stock market invests in non profit making (as in liberal/ anti capitalist) ventures...

No, they're opportunists taking advantage of a flush of government subsidy spending. If the governments weren't subsidizing alternate energy schemes, there would be little market for them, and no one would be investing.

But to take you seriously for a second (because I'm sure you're taking the piss), your simplification of life is endearing, it's obviously complete crap, but endearing...do carry on.

You should take it seriously, your government is spending enormous amounts of money on schemes that are inferior to other potential technologies. You're being sold a Cessna when you could have a Leirjet simply because some professor somewhere decided that you shouldn't be able to go fast. If you really think I'm taking a simplistic view, I'll give you a list of these people and you can see for yourself how the environmental left is anti-technology and is out to slow human growth in favor of the environment. The chief way of doing that is making energy expensive.

[SciFiAuthor]

You got a fusion reactor running?  Sign me up!  (And I'm a liberal.)

Fission, however, not so much.  Fukushima concerns me.

Yep, got an experimental large-scale reactor under construction and plans for a successor that will become the first functioning fusion power generation plant. It's called ITER and is currently being protested against by Greenpeace and anti-Nuclear activists despite it not being fission.

Fukushima should have concerned everyone long before there was a problem. Like Chernobyl, it was a terribly constructed poorly located accident waiting to happen. Fission reactors don't have to be that way, they are simply a technology, and technology can be perfected. Of course, if we'd have been allowed to advance nuclear energy for the last forty years instead of keeping it at a standstill due to the activists, it would have drastically reduced carbon dioxide emissions decades ago by eliminating the need for coal and oil-fired power plants.

I blame the anti-nuclear activists for causing climate change.

[SciFiAuthor]

I don't understand how you can say it's repressed.  Governments have poured huge amounts of money into fusion research for over half a century, and have yet to develop a stable self-sustaining reactor.  It's not repressed, it's just not practical yet and it's old news.  Once we do develop it, it will enjoy the same growth curve as wood, coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear fission have each displayed -- only slowly displacing other energy sources over a span of decades.  That's just how it works.

It's not as far off as you think. ITER's planned successor, DEMO, could produce commercially viable fusion energy as early as 2033 and we've already achieved net gain. Holdren's already machinating around the "ITER is too expensive" mantra, testifying to Congress that it's draining funding from other programs, so I expect the axe is coming soon.

Incidentally, ITER was so concerned about getting shut down by the protest groups that it's no longer an acronym. ITER doesn't stand for anything because what it did stand for had the word "thermonuclear" in it and that was deemed too controversial. Anything involving the energy of the atom is a very, very repressed environment these days.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

It's not as far off as you think. ITER's planned successor, DEMO, could produce commercially viable fusion energy as early as 2033 and we've already achieved net gain. Holdren's already machinating around the "ITER is too expensive" mantra, testifying to Congress that it's draining funding from other programs, so I expect the axe is coming soon.

Incidentally, ITER was so concerned about getting shut down by the protest groups that it's no longer an acronym. ITER doesn't stand for anything because what it did stand for had the word "thermonuclear" in it and that was deemed too controversial. Anything involving the energy of the atom is a very, very repressed environment these days.

I understand that net gain just means the sample liberated more energy than it absorbed, but still not enough to power the lasers.  I haven't been following it that closely though.  I guess I haven't watched the political side of it either.  I can see how Congress would be more interested in protecting their names by not connecting themselves with anything the public might associate with Fukushima than they would be in supporting potentially beneficial but  expensive long term projects.  That's a sad state of affairs.  I can't say I've ever been a fan of Greenpeace, though I'm sure they've done some good things.

[SciFiAuthor]

Hey buddy, we know that 'libs' are against fusion. Even the scientists who are trying to get a fusion reactor developed are all libs and therefore dragging their heels working on it.. Damn liberal/ commie/ Marksist/ Alansky/ liberal, Maoistssss, liberal libs.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/global-observer/the-french-protest-an-experimental-nuclear-fusion-project/

Take particular notice of what the spokeswoman from Sortir du Nucléaire said. "ITER is diverting attention from real solutions to energy problems like renewable resources and energy conservation."

See that? Energy conservation, i.e. exactly what I'm telling you. You may not know it yet, but fusion is unacceptable environmentally because it could produce too much energy. Cheap, abundant energy enables growth, which is done at the expense of the environment. You may not be informed enough to know that this is in your ideology, but the people that set the agenda for the left definitely know it.

[SciFiAuthor]

I understand that net gain just means the sample liberated more energy than it absorbed, but still not enough to power the lasers.  I haven't been following it that closely though.  I guess I haven't watched the political side of it either.  I can't say I've ever been a fan of Greenpeace, though I'm sure they've done some good things.

It's fuel based, if you produce more energy than the fuel cost then you have net gain. It was the holy grail of fusion research for all those years. ITER is projected to produce ten times break even, DEMO 25 times.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

It's fuel based, if you produce more energy than the fuel cost then you have net gain. It was the holy grail of fusion research for all those years. ITER is projected to produce ten times break even, DEMO 25 times.

It is a big breakthrough but it's still not self-sustaining.  It can't yet produce enough energy to overcome the inefficiencies in the system.  I hope ITER is funded and is successful but I think it's still a waiting game.

edit:  I should revise that.  ITER will be successful in serving its purpose, which is to help scientists and engineers better understand controlled fusion, but I think whether it will succeed as a net power generator has yet to be shown.

[West of the Rockies]

ITER is already ten times more expensive than predicted with the earliest functionality not coming until 2027.  From the article you posted, SciFi, it is said the plant will provide no energy to its host country, France.  The citizens are protesting the cost and arguing the money could be better spent perfecting existing power sources.  Yes, they are also protesting what they perceive to be possible dangers (with Fukushima still fresh in their minds--evidently there is some confusion between fusion and fission for said protestors).

We won't achieve fusion without great expense, patience, and some risk... But ITER looks like no fabulous solution to me.  It is, perhaps, an important early step towards clean, affordable energy, but it's not time to break out the champagne just yet. 

[SciFiAuthor]

It is a big breakthrough but it's still not self-sustaining.  It can't yet produce enough energy to overcome the inefficiencies in the system.  I hope ITER is funded and is successful but I think it's still a waiting game.

edit:  I should revise that.  ITER will be successful in serving its purpose, which is to help scientists and engineers better understand controlled fusion, but I think whether it will succeed as a net power generator has yet to be shown.

The problem was always the temperatures needed to keep the reaction going. We now have multiple possibilities in which to develop that; laser, magnetic torus, etc. That brings it from the realm of speculative technology to realistically developable tech. We know the answers to the general questions of science, now it's a matter of engineering a way to use it. At this stage, we'll get it, at least on paper and partially in the lab. But the world does not work on science and engineering alone. The real problem now will now be what part of the bureaucracy gets in the way, and I'm already seeing attempts being made to get in the way. It will only get worse from here on out because the potential energy that fusion can provide is at odds with the prevailing politics of the world. Cheap energy is bad.

Fusion is in the worst possible position. Whether the liberals are aware of it or not ... yet, it is offensive to them. You cannot be for the environment and for fusion at the same time because the human race cannot ever be allowed have cheap and limitless electricity because that enables human growth, which is ALWAYS bad for the environment. Libs may be for fusion now, but that's only because they haven't head the talking points yet. Wait until the negative talking points come out and they'll flip flop. Some already have. But fusion also faces backlash from the right; the coal and oil companies aren't going to like it either. When you have that many people with a motive to work against it, well, it's highly likely that it will get axed and it's behind the general grumbling of people like Obama's science advisor saying it's too expensive, when in reality it's actually pretty cheap for an international effort.

It's happened before. The street cars got axed by GM, the electric car was probably killed for business reasons, the DDT ban killed tens of thousands based on the claims of a single liberal book that claimed bird population decline at the same time as the Audubon society claiming bird population growth, etc. When the activist can compel people better than the scientists that invented the controversial technology can, then the technology dies. That is the rule of tech development. Don't believe me? Then why are so many people willing to yell and scream in support of settled science also so willing to not consume GMO foods? How does one like and dislike science at the same time? It's because everyone's thinking is fucked.

[SciFiAuthor]

ITER is already ten times more expensive than predicted with the earliest functionality not coming until 2027.  From the article you posted, SciFi, it is said the plant will provide no energy to its host country, France.  The citizens are protesting the cost and arguing the money could be better spent perfecting existing power sources.  Yes, they are also protesting what they perceive to be possible dangers (with Fukushima still fresh in their minds--evidently there is some confusion between fusion and fission for said protestors).

Most government programs run over budget, that's how the game works. Underestimate first and hope you don't get cancelled when the cost overruns hit. However, scientifically, it's got way more potential than wind farms. Jesus, we spent all that money on those things and now that they're chopping up eagles and an alarming amount of the electricity they produce is sent to ground rather than to the grid all while some second guess and others try to save face. All of those problems were predicted before development, but the government let 'er rip anyway because of the political demand for alternate energy. Take a look at this piece of crap:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/solar-panel-bird-deaths-ivanpah-brightsource-mojave_n_4809808.html

If you want fusion faster, it merely requires funding. Obama has that power. Instead he's more interested in funding programs that forget that birds exist.

We won't achieve fusion without great expense, patience, and some risk... But ITER looks like no fabulous solution to me.  It is, perhaps, an important early step towards clean, affordable energy, but it's not time to break out the champagne just yet.

People said that about rockets and jet engines in the late 40's but the socio-political realities of today are no longer flexible enough to allow development of the tech. It'll get killed, not by the scientists, but by politicians acting politically. Expense? Well, the Apollo program was pretty expensive, so was the Manhattan project--both things the Dems did. They took the risk because development of those things were dictated by the political climate at the time, rather than by their usefulness. It still happens that way. Case in point, prosthetic limbs. Here's what was amazing a few years ago in what you could do with a pair of hooks:


Cynthia Dusel-Bacon Prosthetic hooks 1/3 total time 39:39

Since then, the political climate moved towards helping out soldiers maimed by IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is where things are now, as a result:


'Terminator' false arm ties shoelace and deals cards

Here's an artist that lost both arms using bionic hands:


Protese Bionica com Celso Mascarenhas - Ortopedia Conforpés

Well, ya know, I'm sure someone said that kind of thing would always be impossible back in the 90's. And it might have been, or at least delayed, if a new market and new money for it hadn't opened up after 2001. It's like that with all technology. Fund fusion and you'll have it fast. Don't and you'll never have it. Buck up now, and it will be here faster. But even as pressing as you guys make climate change out to be, your intelligentsia seems to really be against cheap energy and won't do the Kennedy-style push to make it happen. Why?

[Zoo]

You got a fusion reactor running?  Sign me up!  (And I'm a liberal.)

Fission, however, not so much.  Fukushima concerns me.

I was the same way, then a friend of mine who was a huge anti-nuclear advocate showed me something. He told me to watch this and I did and got me to think I hope it does the same for you "Pandora's Promise Documentary"!!1

[missing transmission]

Laurence Livermore Oceanographer Paul Durack - "our results suggest that global ocean warming has been underestimated by 24 to 58 percent. The conclusion that warming has been underestimated agrees with previous studies, however it's the first time that scientists have tried to estimate how much heat we've missed."

Source New Scientist

"There has been a general acknowledgement in the literature, that southern-hemisphere estimates of ocean warming are likely biased low," says Durack. "Our study is the first to attempt to quantify the magnitude of what this generally acknowledged underestimate is, using as much information as is available."

The study covers the period from 1970 to 2003. Cai says that, during that time, while the northern hemisphere has been well sampled by cargo ships and projects led by wealthy countries north of the equator, very few direct measurements have been taken in the south. So it's not surprising that the in-situ measurements have been wrong. "But this is huge," says Cai.

"One could say that global warming is ocean warming," Gregory Johnson and John Lyman at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote in a commentary accompanying Durack's paper. "Quantifying how fast, and where, the ocean is warming is vital to understanding how much and how fast the atmosphere will warm, and seas will rise."

Sources -
Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming
Deep-ocean contribution to sea level and energy budget not detectable over the past decade

[Yorkshire pud]

Yeah but he's probably a liberal, commie, Marxist, Obama voting moon bunny. So that 'research' is all false and made up for tax purposes.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

Yeah but he's probably a liberal, commie, Marxist, Obama voting moon bunny. So that 'research' is all false and made up for tax purposes.

Nah, he just hid the tree ring data.

[PB the Deplorable]

Laurence Livermore Oceanographer Paul Durack - "our results suggest that global ocean warming has been underestimated by 24 to 58 percent...

So the predictions of rising water and other catastrophes that somehow still aren't occuring are actually off by an additional 24 to 58%? 

That's quite the rounding error, I thought the science was in.



The truth is man made climate (insert the current claim here) is a hoax, an attempt to further the goal of a one-world government under the control of the Left. As the scare tactics become less effective, the claims become more frantic. 

Too many of us have become indoctrinated into having an unwarranted belief and trust in Big Government.  The people who are insisting on this are the same people who gave us Obama.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

So the predictions of rising water and other catastrophes that somehow aren't occuring are actually off by an additional 24 to 58%? 

That's quite the rounding error, I thought the science was in.

Yeah Paper Boy, the science for climate change is irrefutable but it's a complex system with lots of variables that aren't all worked out.  Kind of like how we know that human bodies work but we don't know all the details of how they work.

[Yorkshire pud]

Yeah Paper Boy, the science for climate change is irrefutable but it's a complex system with lots of variables that aren't all worked out.  Kind of like how we know that human bodies work but we don't know all the details of how they work.

You're doing that thing again aren't you? 

[Gd5150]

Yeah Paper Boy, the science for climate change is irrefutable but it's a complex system with lots of variables that aren't all worked out.  Kind of like how we know that human bodies work but we don't know all the details of how they work.

Exactly. Yeah Paper Boy what he said. Don't concern yourself with the details of the "complex system with lots of variables that aren't all worked out". As long as the government is given more power, higher taxes, more regulations, more progressivenessism,  the variables will magically work out and all will be fine.

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

Exactly. Yeah Paper Boy what he said. Don't concern yourself with the details of the "complex system with lots of variables that aren't all worked out". As long as the government is given more power, higher taxes, more regulations, more progressivenessism,  the variables will magically work out and all will be fine.

It's not magic.  The only thing you need to demonstrate is that energy is being accumulated in the system.  Science isn't a black and white world where either everything is known or nothing is known. 

[PB the Deplorable]

I don't know who this Daily Express is, I have confidence that Pud can tell us why we should ignore it. 

http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/518497/Exclusive-interview-with-Dr-Benny-Peiser