KojiroVance’s Recent Comments

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  A little more than average

  If I lived in California or Arizona I wouldn't use as much water.  The average american uses 160 gallons of fresh water per day. There are 4 of us, that is 540 gallons.  That's 16,200 gallons per month.

  We have 20 irrigation heads at 12 gpm. running 30 minutes per week (120 per month). So that is 28,800 gallons per month.  For a total household use of 45,000 gallons.

  Now if I was pulling water from the Ogallala aquifer to grow soy beans for biodiesel or corn for ethanol - then you might have a point.

  As for new water. I'll concede the point. But again, it is not significant. All the oil produced since its discovery wouldn't even fill Lake Tahoe, let alone even the smallest of the Great Lakes.  So relax, the new water isn't going to harm the environment. On FutureGen "clean coal" demonstration plant slated for Illinois posted 1 year, 10 months ago 26 Responses

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  Water

  Ok, I checked the water bill. We used 24,000 gallons last month or about 800 a day for a family of four. We live in an area that gets about 40" of rain a year, and our water comes from a man-made reservoir. So I'm not depriving anyone of any water. Our runoff and sanitary sewer end up in the same river they would have if there was no reservoir.  

  My point was that normal evaporation puts thousands of times as much water into the air as the water generated by burning fuel. There is no "new" water. Any water from combustion will just displace water that might have evaporated normally.  But the change is so insignificant you probably couldn't measure it. The water I USE came from evaporation.  I return it as liquid water back into the ocean, from which it came.  

  I didn't say one way or the other anything about AGW other than say what the debate is. AGW is one possible explanation - the one which most of the climate modelers believe.  Predicting the future is much less certain.  

  Coal is dirty might make a nice bumper sticker, but it really depends on how it is mined and how close the mine is to the power source.  If FutureGen uses Illinois coal it may not be as dirty.  Most of the heavy metals contamination goes out with the slag, which is safe enough to use as paving materials.  On FutureGen "clean coal" demonstration plant slated for Illinois posted 1 year, 10 months ago 26 Responses

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  Water vapor

  You were worried about water vapor in the atmosphere, not CO2. Burning fossil fuels generates an insignificant amount of water vapor relative to normal evaporative cycles.  To the extent that fossil fuels contribute will be offset by reduced evaporation as the atmosphere and surface water reach equilibrium.

  Burning fossil fuels increases CO2 concentration in the atmosphere by only 1-2 ppm per year. The debate is over how much of the warming over the last 150 years is caused by man-made CO2 and how much is due to natural variation in climate.  

  The argument over FutureGen is the cost of sequestration and whether there are better or cheaper ways to reduce CO2.On FutureGen "clean coal" demonstration plant slated for Illinois posted 1 year, 10 months ago 26 Responses

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  Stupid?

  Hey I've got an idea. Why don't I take out an ad in the Mattoon, IL paper with Sean's quotes in it and invite everyone to comment at grist? On Grist contributor bashes 'clean coal' posted 1 year, 10 months ago 37 Responses

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  What?

  "That statement just doesn't fly anymore.  There is not even a debate to be had about it at this stage.  Billions of people, doing many small things, can have a huge impact"

  "This becomes a cycle of warming. 1.2 trillion gallons of manufactured water a year would seem to be a significant amount."

  Are you serious? 1/2 the earth is bathed in 1 kW/m2 of solar radiation.  This amounts to thousands of times the energy released by fossil fuels. Water? Do the math.  My wife and I use about 800 gallons a year of gasoline. So what if I generate 800 gallons of water vapor. Compared to our domestic water use, this is NOTHING!  I use more water than this in one day watering the lawn.  

  You really need to go take a science class.  You probably wasted your time studying global warming and watching "Captain Planet" or some other nonsense.  Compared to the energy in even one small hurricane, the energy we use is totally insignificant.

    On FutureGen "clean coal" demonstration plant slated for Illinois posted 1 year, 10 months ago 26 Responses