Thursday, December 29, 2011

The UN Climate Change Program Is Dying

We now have a report on the latest UN meeting at Durban concerning climate change. Cheryl Hogue reports in the December 19 issue of Chemical and Engineering News.

The so-called "big change" is that greenhouse gas emissions, say carbon dioxide, will no longer be limited to industrialized countries as required by the original Kyoto Accord. It will now include all major CO2 emitters.

I don't see the difference. The concentration seems to be on China, which is a major emitter, because of its size, but it is also an industrialized country. If you don't believe that, check various retail stores for goods made in China.

Democratic Sen. Kerry says the US will lose now lose its long-held position that it will not abide by the Kyoto Accord, because China does not. Kerry seems to have the presumption that China will now be in agreement, which is not necessarily fact.

The original Kyoto Accord involved two stages of CO2 emission reductions. Canada, Japan, and Russia were part of the Kyoto Protocol, but they have now announced that they will not sign up for the second round of CO2 emission reductions. In addition, Canada announced that it is withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol completely. It is said that Canada has done little to cut its CO2 emissions and may be susceptible to a fine. I say "hooray" for Canada. They should not be cutting CO2 emissions, but rather using all forms of energy in order to aid in developing an improved way of life for its citizens. It would be silly of Canada to actually pay any fine that might be placed on it.

Frank Maisano, an energy specialist representing utilities and refineries has said that path to a treaty established in Durban will be meaningless and nobody will follow through on it. I strongly hope this prediction will come true.

Let us remember that CO2 does no harm in the atmosphere with respect to any climate change. The whole idea of CO2 emission control is a political maneuver to equalize worldwide financial assets, through a tax program called Cap & Trade.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Improved Sea Transportation Route

Jyllian Kemsley has an article entitled, "Connecting Ice and Air" in the December 5 issue of Chemical and Engineering News. It is about a scientific probe concerning the role of sea ice in atmospheric chemistry as the Arctic warms. This seems to me to be a reasonable study, providing it doesn't cost "too much". I should also point out that I am not disputing warming of the Arctic and the reduction in ice coverage, nor am I disputing that there is such a thing as climate change. However, I do dispute any implication that the activities of man has had any significant effect on this climate change.

With that aside and unrelated to the basic study,, I am impressed with the shrinkage of ice coverage, leading to opportunities in sea transport.

According to Wikipedia, Roald Amundsen found a connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans north of Canada in the early 1900s.. However until 2009, Arctic pack ice prevented regular marine shipping throughout most of the year. Climate change has now reduced the Arctic pack ice making this waterway more navigable.

It should be noted that, other than this Northwest Passage, the only connections between the Atlantic and Pacific are through the Panama Canal and around the southern end of South America. The Panama route has its limitation in the size of ships if can handle, although the capacity has recently been somewhat expanded. The southern route has the disadvantage of increased distance, which extends the time of delivery.

We hear many predictions of doom from the effects of climate change. Here is one effect that could be significantly economically helpful.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The Climate Change Fear Mongers Are Still At It

The November 28 issue of Chemical and Engineering News reported that new talks would begin on that date in South Africa concerning the curbing of greenhouse gas emissions. They really mean reducing CO2. They also plan to brace the world for the worsening impacts of climate change, which are detailed in a recently released UN report.

I have not seen the UN report, but the C&E News article includes a picture with a caption that says "A new report says storms like Hurricane Irene are likely to become more intense but not more frequent". It would be interesting to see how they could make this prediction. I also note that in the subsequent issue of C&E News on December 5, there is no mention of the results of the meeting. Hopefully, it was a bust.

"Negotiators", and I use the term loosely as reported by C&E News, are trying to get China to reduce its CO2 emissions, but China has wisely not agreed. The US continues to sit on the fence by saying that if China doesn't agree, it will also not agree. While I don't like the rationale, at least it is progress in going nowhere on limiting CO2 emissions.

For those who may not have been following the aspects of CO2 emissions, the claim is that CO2 leads to global warming, with disastrous effects. However, the fact is that there are no data to support this theory. The basis is not so much an environmental concern but rather a government interest in obtaining additional tax revenues through a carbon tax. Another negative for even considering it is that it would cost trillions of dollars to control CO2 emissions unnecessarily from power plants and other major sources, at a time when the US is very strongly in deficit, with a completely unbalanced budget.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Refrigerant Gases and Global Warming

In the early use of refrigeration, the process used ammonia and sulfur dioxide, for compression and decompression to obtain cooling. These gases were somewhat obnoxious and were subsequently replaced by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). However, someone later developed the theory that CFCs were reacting with ozone in the upper stratosphere and it was necessary to preserve the ozone as a protective barrier to damaging radiation from the sun at the Earth's surface. We will not now discuss the merits of this theory, but it led to modification of the CFCs, with the intention of using gases less reactive to ozone. These modified gases are now being criticized as contributing to global warming. See Cheryl Hogue's article in the December 5 issue of C&E News.

As is usual with most problems, a mathematical analysis usually brings the problem into perspective, with respect to its significance. Let's do this with refrigerants to determine whether their contribution to global warming is significant.

The weight of the Earth's atmosphere, which is mostly nitrogen and oxygen, is estimated to be 5.5x10 E 21 grams. The "E 21" means there are 21 zeros following the 5.5. The molecular weight of air is approximately 30 g per mole. Therefore, the number of moles of air in the atmosphere is 5.5x10 E 21 divided by 30, or about 2x10 E 20.

A mole of any substance is made up of 6x10 E 23 molecules. Therefore, the number of molecules of air in the atmosphere is 2x10 E 30 times 6x10 E 23, or about 1x10 E 44.

In 1991, usage of CFCs for refrigeration and blowing agents was 6.8x10 E 11 grams. Assume the worst-case for the atmosphere, which is that all the CFCs entered the atmosphere. The molecular weight of the most common CFC (dichlorodifluoromethane) is 120. Therefore, the number of moles of CFC entering the atmosphere was 6.8x10 E 11 divided by 120, or about 6x10 E 9. Again converting to numbers of molecules, 6x10 E9 times 6x10 E 23 gives 36x10 E 32, or 3.6x10 E 33.

We now divide the number of air molecules in the atmosphere by the number of CFC molecules entering the atmosphere in 1991. 1x10 E 44 divided by 3.6x10 E. 33 gives about 1x10 E 11. In other words, there were 100 trillion times more air molecules then CFC molecules in the atmosphere in 1991.

The theory of global warming is that some molecules are greater reflectors of heat than others. The global warming effect is said to occur by those molecules not allowing heat to escape from the Earth's surface.

Assume the worst-case scenario. That is, molecules of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere allow complete passage of heat from the earth's surface to interstellar space, while molecules of CFC completely block this passage of heat.

Let us now also make an analogy that we have a net containing 100 trillion holes (pretty big net!). One of the holes is completely blocked. Is that enough to have any significant effect on what passes through all the remaining holes?