PBS Forum

Quote from: MarcR on August 14, 2023, 12:38:04 PMHere in Oregon's Mid Willamette Valley, we are expecting 103 F (39.4 C) today.  In the 20 years I have lived here, I have never seen anything above the low 90s (32-34 C).  Since most deer resistant plants can take the heat; and all of my beds that are not deer resistant are deer fenced, I need only  drape shade cloth over the fencing.  It will be very nice if this translates to slightly warmer winters. I would be very happy with a change from zone 8a to 9b or even 9a. I certainly do not wish harm to anyone south of me.

Sadly, while the average may rise, the extremes will likely be more extreme...so zone 9 with occasional visits to 8A or 7B...and remarkable heat storms like last year.

Quote from: David Pilling on August 14, 2023, 10:32:51 AMI've been reading about Mick Fleetwood today, I should have travelled to the edge of the world and opened a restaurant [1].  [1] he had a restaurant in Hawaii.

Here's the story from The Telegraph.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/14/mick-fleetwood-mac-restaurant-destroyed-hawaii-wildfires/

It is now being reported that the Maui's Emergency Alert Siren System was not activated to warm people of the impending disaster. 

It's hot and steamy here on the coastal plain near the first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown.  The dewpoint at times yesterday was in the low 80s, apparently a rare event.

On the positive side, my African Costus plants love the heat and humidity and my C. macranthus threw off a rhizome which I harvested and planted yesterday.  So, I'll have an additional plant producing beautiful flowers next Spring.

Quote from: Bern on August 15, 2023, 09:00:26 AMThe dewpoint at times yesterday was in the low 80s,

Something around 57F here today. A warm sunny day at 64F maximum. A dew point of 80F would probably be unpleasant.

PBS wiki covers Costus but we have no photos of Costus macranthus.


Back on topic, first shot of Winter 2023/24, seemingly El Niño is associated with cold dry Winters in Europe and no one is much bothered about an energy shortage.

Quote from: David Pilling on August 15, 2023, 05:32:22 PMBack on topic, first shot of Winter 2023/24, seemingly El Niño is associated with cold dry Winters in Europe and no one is much bothered about an energy shortage.

The info below is from S&P Global Commodity Insights on July 27, 2023.  Let's hope for mild winter weather, peace in Ukraine, an inactive hurricane season, an end to inflation, and just and peaceful politics, etc.  One can always hope......

The energy crisis: a change in the zeitgeist

"Europe will hit a new milestone in late 2024 once it survives its first winter without Russian natural gas pipeline supply, yet in this "new normal" prices will be persistently volatile and prone to sharp spikes, as the market is left at the mercy of LNG supply, unlikely ever to regain pre-crisis stability."

" What is certain is that the crisis has reshaped the global energy sector permanently, and Europe will now compete with Asia for LNG supply on a much larger scale than ever before, with previously reliable Russian pipeline supply completely absent. But the market will be far more prepared for any uncertainties, and better equipped to deal with them."

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insights/blogs/energy-transition/072723-europe-energy-crisis-gas-gazprom-power-lng-price

Quote from: David Pilling on August 15, 2023, 05:32:22 PMPBS wiki covers Costus but we have no photos of Costus macranthus.

This is the first season my C. macranthus became acclimated to the northern hemisphere and was able to grow outside during the summer.  So, the plant is a bit on the small side still and has not yet bloomed for me. Hopefully, next season it will exhibit mature foliage and bloom.  I will take photos then and submit it for posting on the PBS wiki. 

Quote from: Bern on August 17, 2023, 09:03:58 AMThe energy crisis: a change in the zeitgeist

The article says a change to Europe being dependent on LNG has taken place and that it will be the situation for the foreseeable future,

So they're now relying on a form of fuel that produces more carbon than before (because LNG has to be liquefied and shipped around the world). UK government has been criticised for trying to produce more fuel from the North Sea.

This plays in to the story that use of natural gas/oil and coal are currently at an all time high, despite all the efforts at using wind/solar.

The other interesting thing I heard is that diesel/jet fuel/petrol(gasoline?) are produced together. If they replace all the petrol powered cars with electric vehicles, all that happens is there's a lot of cheap petrol to sell to countries with fewer evs.

Something similar goes on with natural gas that is a byproduct of oil extraction - there are bans on flaring it off - and US is building a network to pipe it to consumers.

Here we are the lowest carbon house in the neighborhoood (my utility tells me), a feat engineered by the demise of the old gas boiler and hence reliance on electricity (most of which comes from wind power). On a variable rate tariff they will pay me for using power some times - one proposal then is a 'house battery', something Tesla sell, charge during cheap power, use other times of day.

One day, perhaps, the lunatic "stop oil" brigade will realise how nuts they are. Maybe.

Around 30% of oil and gas is used for other than fuel. There is nothing that anyone wears or eats, no piece of any technology, nothing but the most primary products in this world, that does not rely on oil or gas.

Fertilisers, paints, adhesive, road surfaces, lubricants, anything but cotton and wool in clothing, every electronic components is encapsulated in, and/or attached to a resin derived from oil or gas, pesticides and herbicides, food packaging that increases shelf-life many-fold compared to paper and card. How much of any form of transport derives from oil? Lord alone knows how you'd make glass without fossil fuels (although cement calciners in the UK do run on pulverised used vehicle tyres as long as they can due to simple economics, and no, tyres are not 100% natural materials).

Just take food packaging, ignoring how practical it might be, and cost, and shelf-life, and much besides, where would the paper pulp come from to replace all the plastic with paper and card?

No, plastics cannot be recycled ad infinitum. They can be cracked and start from scratch again, but the energy costs are vast.

Quote from: David Pilling on August 18, 2023, 03:57:37 AMIf they replace all the petrol powered cars with electric vehicles, all that happens is there's a lot of cheap petrol to sell to countries with fewer evs.

The governments forcing green energy on their populations will diminish both their wealth and liberties. While the governments that don't go green will benefit enormously with increased wealth and its benefits from cheap fossil fuels. While there is a positive correlation between industrialization, carbon dioxide emissions, and global warming, it would be a tragedy to learn many years later that it was not causative. It is rather easy to find a synopsis of climate history on the internet now. It is abundantly clear that there were instances of substantial global warming in the past, most notably at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch about 11,000 years ago. Immense ice sheets and glaciers had covered present day Canada and extended into what is currently the United States. All of this is gone now due to global warming that cannot be attributed to the sparse human population on the North American continent or the rest of the Earth at that time. This period of global warming caused the extinction of many animal species, including the iconic woolly mammoths and mastodons.

I've seen the remains of these glaciers and ice sheet at Moraine Hills State Park in Northern Illinois.

https://dnr.illinois.gov/parks/activity/park.morainehills.html

You can visit Mastodon State Historic Site in Missouri to learn about the Kimmswick Fossil Beds where clovis points were found alongside Mastodon bones, indicating the coexistence of humans and Mastodons over 10,000 years ago.

https://www.mostateparks.com/page/54983/historic-site-history

And here's a link to an explanation of the extent and history of the glaciation on the North American continent.

https://www.britannica.com/science/Wisconsin-Glacial-Stage

If the current instance of global temperature increases is caused by nature, similar to what concluded about 11,000 years ago, and is not manmade, much disruption and misery will ensue because of the activities of the anti-carbon crusaders.  IMO.


   

Quote from: David Pilling on August 18, 2023, 03:57:37 AMThe other interesting thing I heard is that diesel/jet fuel/petrol(gasoline?) are produced together. If they replace all the petrol powered cars with electric vehicles, all that happens is there's a lot of cheap petrol to sell to countries with fewer evs.

How had you previously imagined that fuels were produced?
In fact, refineries tend to specialise and to that end use particular types or blends of crude, so that fractional distillation produces a particular mix of fractions - give or take not much they end up with X% of, for instance, Jet A1, Y% diesel, and Z% petrol, day in, day out.

The very small refinery not far from where I used to live specialised in aviation spirit production and produced rather little petrol, which was down to what crude they processed as much as their process.

If the UK went 100% EV tomorrow, or any time even remotely soon, the country would grind to a halt faster than PDQ. Just to replace all petrol consumption would require a generating capacity in the UK of approx. double the current installed capacity. (The figures will be online somewhere, but 2022 saw low output from solar and wind - the UK was unusually overcast and still all year.)

Here's another anomalous weather event.  San Diego, CA is under its first tropical storm watch in history.  Potentially catastrophic flooding could occur across San Diego County this weekend.  The storm will produce heavy rain and flooding in othe parts of California and Nevada also.

Here's a good satellite image and gif video of Hurricane Hillary.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/satlooper.php?region=atlpac-wide&product=truecolor

Here's a map of the storm's path.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_ep4+shtml/115409.shtml?cone#contents

Here's a map of the predicted rainfall amounts.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_ep4+shtml/115409.shtml?rainqpf#contents

Here's a map of the flash flooding probabilities.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_ep4+shtml/115409.shtml?rainqpf#contents

Here's the headlines and story in the San Diego Union Tribune Newspaper.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/weather/story/2023-08-18/tropical-storm-watch-san-diego-county-hilary

The other major natural disaster is occurring in Canada now.  The provincial capital of the Northwest Territories, Yellowknife, a town of 20K people, has been evacuated because of an approaching firestorm. Firefighters are working assiduously to try to save the town. They don't want another Lahaina to occur there.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/19/canada-wildfires-british-columbia-in-state-of-emergency-as-19000-flee-yellowknife-fire

Quote from: CG100 on August 19, 2023, 05:30:07 AMHow had you previously imagined that fuels were produced?

I thought they did it with AI.

No doubt I was once told, but long forgotten, at any rate I did not think they produced stuff they didn't particularly require. I suppose I should consider 'slag heaps' - the huge hills of spoil around coal mines and iron works.

As a child the flame that burned in the distance above the local ICI works was a sign we were near home. Those were the days.

Quote from: David Pilling on August 19, 2023, 06:37:33 AMI did not think they produced stuff they didn't particularly require.

I have never worked in a refinery, but suspect that something close to 100% of what goes in, comes out as one product or another. Even the residues after distillation are things like bitumen, or what is called petroleum coke, the latter commonly being burnt in coal-fired power stations.

An interesting article -  it claims to be a typical analysis of a US refinery, but it seems to be high on the % destined to be fuel - the general figure that I have seen previously stated was that around 30% of world crude production was used for non-fuel uses.

Refining crude oil - inputs and outputs - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Quote from: CG100 on August 19, 2023, 07:28:03 AMRefining crude oil - inputs and outputs - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

An interesting read - they get out more than goes in because the volume expands.

Quote from: Bern on August 18, 2023, 12:05:15 PMAnd here's a link to an explanation of the extent and history of the glaciation on the North American continent.

Must be interesting to see the line on the ground - AFAIK the ice completely covered England, leaving just a little be of Ireland. Hence there's no natural vegetation over 10K years old.

Quote from: David Pilling on August 19, 2023, 04:03:31 PMthey get out more than goes in because the volume expands.

It is like the school chemistry lesson "trick" - mix 100ml of water with 100ml of meths - you don't get 200ml, you get less.

I suspect that the 30% figure includes natural gas as well, and a lot of that goes for fertiliser manufacture - as a source of H in NH3, but how much as a %.........

Bottom line - if we stop extracting oil and gas, the world would cease to exist in any form even remotely similar to what we know now.
Imagine, no PVC for electrical insulation - imagine how much tropical jungle would have to be felled to return to rubber insulation - current production is around 14-15 milion tonnes per year produced on 10 million hectares (100,000 square km), PVC is 50-60 million tonnes and is used for pipes for every conceivable use, as well as electrical insulation.