‘Course you could get rid of CO2 by leaving the Carbon as soot (remember the semi-trucks of the ’80s?).  I agree with the LSD (Low Sulphur Diesel); there’s no good reason to be spewing sulfuric acid into the atmosphere.But nowadays, the soot gets “reburned” in the exhaust system to make it into CO2; cleaner looking, worse for the Global Warming effect.There are several good ways of reducing the CO2 in the air, but they all cost something; maybe if the CO2 cap & trade funds will produce a market for CO2 reclamation processes (Periodite, or Ca + CO2 => Lime, or a furniture plant).You could also get rid of CO2 by “Amish sequestration” — if you build furninture with the wood and prevent it from rotting, the wood will hold the CO2 for several lifetimes -Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com/component/content/article/50-global-warming-video.html

Lead-acid batteries are ~95% recyclable, and most of that is recycled as long as you turn the battery in when you buy a new one.  Last year, you could get $20 / battery if you brought it to the recycler.I also like plastics, fiberglass, and carbon-fiber (for bodies), but it is very expensive to manufacture with those materials (as well as not environmentally friendly… the resins are quite toxic and irritating).  The largest problem I have with the auto indsutry using plastics and carbon fiber is that they don’t react well to cost-cutting measures; instead of “yeilding” or “bending”, they tend to shatter (my oil dipstick tube is plastic; the engine oil removed the elastomers from the plastic, and it shattered — fixed with some heat shrink tubing, but…)Last year, I would have picked cars to be pretty recyclable: first they go to a scrpyard, where poeple pick over the carcasses to get replacement parts, and then they would be sent to a metal recycling facility to be melted down and sent back to the factory.  With China refusing barges of scrap metal because it is too cheap to make a profit, I’m not sure nowadays…-Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com

This “Greenwash” idea is hokey:  First, we punish them for “trying to put on a green face” because of their past (which I agree is less-than-wonderful, but if you don’t give them the ability to improve, wtf are they supposed to do?), and you criticize others for finding greener ways of doing business.

—GE – we build crappy lightbulbs and good nuclear reactors (which solves the whole coal problem).  We also are trying to increase imagination for the future… and you call them on all this just because they stunk up a river (badly, I admit) a while ago?

—Dow Chemical – Nowadays, purveyors of paints that clean the air (catalytic paint that uses ozon to scrib the air), and other wonderful things, and you call them on creating a “solution” for the military’s problem with “the enemy”?  Yes they should be watched, but da-amn.  Let them make some progress.

—CSX – uses Coal-Electric hybrids  (hey, they’re buzzword compliant…) to make their engines much more efficient; how else do you move thousands of tons from place to place (and, in fairness, the engines of these trains put out cleaner air than they take in when in the polluted areas)? Semi-trucks have taken over most light-freight, but nothing beats a train for bulk mateirals…Ya know… at one time, we had semi trucks that didn’t contribute to Global Warming near as much as they do now: instead of emitting CO2, they emitted soot (sorry… the soot is inherent to the diesel process). Now we collect the Carbon soot, hold it in a canister, then oxidize it into CO2 (where we could’ve just buried the carbon and ended up with sequestering it). But it didn’t look right. I agree with low-sulphur diesel though– SO2 and compounds are nasty.

—Electricite de France — WTF is wrong with nuclear power, especially with France’s demonstrated ability to recycle the high-level fuel waste (not economically compared to fresh ore, but hey…. at least they’re doing it)?  Should they be building coal plants (global warming, etc) instead?!

-Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com(And why can’t I get paragraph beaks to work?)

My only concern is that they cannnot likely remove the monkey from their back (UAW pensions & regulations) without filing for Chapter 11 / 13.  Unless the unions concede some things to the corporations I don’t see any way for them to become competitive…I’m not sure what else needs to be done to “force the US Automakers to be green” — Chevy has their VOLT, normal hybrids, and the Corvette (28 MPG).  Ford has their Focus (@35 MPG hwy, tends to beat Priuses for the same driving methods); nowadays, I think a lot of people don’t buy “domestic” because they are concerned more with quality than MPG (hey Ford… a 3/36 warranty?!), even though American automakers have done a good job lately.  I’m on business and we got a Camry (I’m 6′ 2, and my partner is 6′, so no pulling a “should’ve gone with a Yaris), and the features of my Focus far outweigh those of the Camry (MPG display, remote locks, dash lights that come on when the headlights do, etc).-Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com

Is there a faq as to why all my posts are getting the whitespace stripped from them?I’ve tried Chrome [this post], IE7 (didn’t work)…?!

@toddbrilliant:A bit inane, all of this, really. Electric cars consume ten times the water when compared to fuel vehicles. That 100MPG fleet will only deplete our water supplies in no time. Huh?  What does water have to do with electric cars?  If you’re talking about the power plants, that water is not “consumed” (at least with the more modern nuclear reactors — the steam turbine loop has to be ultra-pure water to prevent corrosion).  It is heated (which may cause problems with the local wildlife, see TN cutting back in June last year), but not contaminated…  I suppose gasoline cars (which emit ~33% new water vapor from the tailpipe) would be the “green solution” (though that water is dirty, nasty, and contaminated)…  An internal combustion engine is ~30% efficient (at best!!), and always uses a HC fuel (CO2 at best, fossil fuels at worst).  Customers won’t put up with turbine cars (noisy, and dangerous), or external combustion (yes, they do exist, but are much less efficient, but produce less pollutants) engines. Power plants can be more efficient (natural gas turbines), renewable, or Nuclear (look ma, no CO2).  Plus their “pollutants” can be scrubbed, cleaned, and dealt with better because the power plant isn’t moving around…A nuclear car would be kindof neat, but I imagine it would be a royal pain to get NHTSA to approve of such a beastie…Also, the biggest thing you can do to make a difference is stop eating meat right now. After energy production, animal agriculture is the globe’s largest CO2 gas producer. In fact, a vegetarian driving a Hummer is producing FAR less emissions than a meat-eater driving a plug-in hybrid. Before you buy that Prius, consider your diet…then you can find out whether you really do give a damn. If you refuse to give up the beef, well, you really don’t care.Again, huh?  The CO2 (or methane) that is emitted by the cows (and us!) was already in the current carbon cycle (don’t let cows eat coal!), and unless the vegetation is petrified, will escape anyway as it decays (swamp gas).  If you want to sequester carbon the low-tech way, the best way is to make furniture so that the tree will not release the carbon it gathered during its life when it rots.  Then you have to keep people from throwing it away or burning it…-Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com

Grr.. can someone get rid of my other post — evidently my browser didn’t like the editor… I’ve also added some more stuff…I agree with much that is said here, but want to refine a couple of items:1.  On Nuclear - It doesn’t have to be Yucca Mountain.We can use those “spent fuel rods” if we reprocess them (currently done in Germany, blocked by a Carter Executive Order), or if we add smaller nuclear reactors (the CanDu reactor can burn nearly any nuclear fuel from spent fuel rods to unprocessed uranium. But it has a much lower power density than current designs).  Beyond Uranium, we have a large quantity of Thorium deposits that are feasilbe, but not currently used.  As I understand it, Thorium reactors should be much safer (but again, probably lower in power density than current Uranium reactors).  But right now, it seems that “everybody” is against nuclear reactors.2. It takes more energy to heat an apartment than to cool it,False.  The same principle used in the cooling can be used to heat; they’re called heat pumps.  But, having a single unit be able to heat -or- cool reduces the efficiency a bit so it may not be worth it if you don’t really need to heat (eg, if you have a heavy computer load and other sources of heat, you may not need central heat at all.  Most retail stores didn’t until they switched to the new T5 light bulbs).  Also… increasing the RH to 70% (if you don’t have a humidifier, bringing the temp from 40 to 70 will cause the RH to be around 30%) will make the room feel more comfortable more quickly than plain heat (but watch for condensation problems).The problem with global statements like that is that there are a myriad of ways to condition a space, and they’re each efficient in different areas (eg, an evaporative cooler works well in AZ, ok in TX, but in FL…)3. [To chazthetic] It already makes my blood boil when I hear a woman in the grocery store saying she traded in her 12 mpg suv for a 16 mpg I think you have fallen for what is starting to be called the MPG fallacy:  A jump from 12 MPG -> 16 MPG, while only 4 MPG, is a 33% improvement.  Somebody looking to pick a car to trade in and choosing between:    a) upgrade 12->16 MPG on the Family Van (spoot)     – or –    b) upgrade 22->30 MPG on working commuter carWould be better off choosing a:    a) 300 mile range goes from 25 gallons => 19 (6 gallons every 300 mi)    b) 300 miles goes from 14 gallons =>10 (4 gallons every 300 miles)Of course, it really matters how much the vehicle is used, but at the high end, you start running out of room to improve (turning on my AC in my 35 MPG focus drops the gas milage down to 31 MPG on current GA ethanol-laced gasoline).  But jumping from a “normal” Escape (14 MPG) to a Hybrid Escape (30 MPG) would always be worth it, even though the smug-emitting Prius owners consider a SUV-hybrid a step in the completely wrong direction (just on principle ya see… an Escape can never match the gas mileage of a compact car.  On the other hand, a compact car can never match the hauling ability and convenience of a SUV/Truck/Large car) .My real job is to prevent the “fading effect” from taking place on commercial buildings.  It’s not as sexy as “hybrids” or “cars” or “solar”, but study after study has shown that after the HVAC system gets tuned-up (in our lingo, recommissioned), the initial savings will decrease by 20% or more after 2 years of being left alone.Not sexy.  But it’s a part I know how to play.  And we all need to do our part.http://www.scientificconservation.com -Thor JohnsonPS.  OTOH, those that voice complaints that “solar is unusable because it can never be a base load” are equally bad:  you don’t need air conditioning (or 100% lighting in businesses) when the sun goes down and the people go home….

‘Course you could get rid of CO2 by leaving the Carbon as soot (remember the semi-trucks of the ’80s?).  I agree with the LSD (Low Sulphur Diesel); there’s no good reason to be spewing sulfuric acid into the atmosphere.But nowadays, the soot gets “reburned” in the exhaust system to make it into CO2; cleaner looking, worse for the Global Warming effect.There are several good ways of reducing the CO2 in the air, but they all cost something; maybe if the CO2 cap & trade funds will produce a market for CO2 reclamation processes (Periodite, or Ca + CO2 => Lime, or a furniture plant).You could also get rid of CO2 by “Amish sequestration” — if you build furninture with the wood and prevent it from rotting, the wood will hold the CO2 for several lifetimes -Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com/component/content/article/50-global-warming-video.html

Lead-acid batteries are ~95% recyclable, and most of that is recycled as long as you turn the battery in when you buy a new one.  Last year, you could get $20 / battery if you brought it to the recycler.I also like plastics, fiberglass, and carbon-fiber (for bodies), but it is very expensive to manufacture with those materials (as well as not environmentally friendly… the resins are quite toxic and irritating).  The largest problem I have with the auto indsutry using plastics and carbon fiber is that they don’t react well to cost-cutting measures; instead of “yeilding” or “bending”, they tend to shatter (my oil dipstick tube is plastic; the engine oil removed the elastomers from the plastic, and it shattered — fixed with some heat shrink tubing, but…)Last year, I would have picked cars to be pretty recyclable: first they go to a scrpyard, where poeple pick over the carcasses to get replacement parts, and then they would be sent to a metal recycling facility to be melted down and sent back to the factory.  With China refusing barges of scrap metal because it is too cheap to make a profit, I’m not sure nowadays…-Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com

This “Greenwash” idea is hokey:  First, we punish them for “trying to put on a green face” because of their past (which I agree is less-than-wonderful, but if you don’t give them the ability to improve, wtf are they supposed to do?), and you criticize others for finding greener ways of doing business.

—GE – we build crappy lightbulbs and good nuclear reactors (which solves the whole coal problem).  We also are trying to increase imagination for the future… and you call them on all this just because they stunk up a river (badly, I admit) a while ago?

—Dow Chemical – Nowadays, purveyors of paints that clean the air (catalytic paint that uses ozon to scrib the air), and other wonderful things, and you call them on creating a “solution” for the military’s problem with “the enemy”?  Yes they should be watched, but da-amn.  Let them make some progress.

—CSX – uses Coal-Electric hybrids  (hey, they’re buzzword compliant…) to make their engines much more efficient; how else do you move thousands of tons from place to place (and, in fairness, the engines of these trains put out cleaner air than they take in when in the polluted areas)? Semi-trucks have taken over most light-freight, but nothing beats a train for bulk mateirals…Ya know… at one time, we had semi trucks that didn’t contribute to Global Warming near as much as they do now: instead of emitting CO2, they emitted soot (sorry… the soot is inherent to the diesel process). Now we collect the Carbon soot, hold it in a canister, then oxidize it into CO2 (where we could’ve just buried the carbon and ended up with sequestering it). But it didn’t look right. I agree with low-sulphur diesel though– SO2 and compounds are nasty.

—Electricite de France — WTF is wrong with nuclear power, especially with France’s demonstrated ability to recycle the high-level fuel waste (not economically compared to fresh ore, but hey…. at least they’re doing it)?  Should they be building coal plants (global warming, etc) instead?!

-Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com(And why can’t I get paragraph beaks to work?)

My only concern is that they cannnot likely remove the monkey from their back (UAW pensions & regulations) without filing for Chapter 11 / 13.  Unless the unions concede some things to the corporations I don’t see any way for them to become competitive…I’m not sure what else needs to be done to “force the US Automakers to be green” — Chevy has their VOLT, normal hybrids, and the Corvette (28 MPG).  Ford has their Focus (@35 MPG hwy, tends to beat Priuses for the same driving methods); nowadays, I think a lot of people don’t buy “domestic” because they are concerned more with quality than MPG (hey Ford… a 3/36 warranty?!), even though American automakers have done a good job lately.  I’m on business and we got a Camry (I’m 6′ 2, and my partner is 6′, so no pulling a “should’ve gone with a Yaris), and the features of my Focus far outweigh those of the Camry (MPG display, remote locks, dash lights that come on when the headlights do, etc).-Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com

Is there a faq as to why all my posts are getting the whitespace stripped from them?I’ve tried Chrome [this post], IE7 (didn’t work)…?!

@toddbrilliant:A bit inane, all of this, really. Electric cars consume ten times the water when compared to fuel vehicles. That 100MPG fleet will only deplete our water supplies in no time. Huh?  What does water have to do with electric cars?  If you’re talking about the power plants, that water is not “consumed” (at least with the more modern nuclear reactors — the steam turbine loop has to be ultra-pure water to prevent corrosion).  It is heated (which may cause problems with the local wildlife, see TN cutting back in June last year), but not contaminated…  I suppose gasoline cars (which emit ~33% new water vapor from the tailpipe) would be the “green solution” (though that water is dirty, nasty, and contaminated)…  An internal combustion engine is ~30% efficient (at best!!), and always uses a HC fuel (CO2 at best, fossil fuels at worst).  Customers won’t put up with turbine cars (noisy, and dangerous), or external combustion (yes, they do exist, but are much less efficient, but produce less pollutants) engines. Power plants can be more efficient (natural gas turbines), renewable, or Nuclear (look ma, no CO2).  Plus their “pollutants” can be scrubbed, cleaned, and dealt with better because the power plant isn’t moving around…A nuclear car would be kindof neat, but I imagine it would be a royal pain to get NHTSA to approve of such a beastie…Also, the biggest thing you can do to make a difference is stop eating meat right now. After energy production, animal agriculture is the globe’s largest CO2 gas producer. In fact, a vegetarian driving a Hummer is producing FAR less emissions than a meat-eater driving a plug-in hybrid. Before you buy that Prius, consider your diet…then you can find out whether you really do give a damn. If you refuse to give up the beef, well, you really don’t care.Again, huh?  The CO2 (or methane) that is emitted by the cows (and us!) was already in the current carbon cycle (don’t let cows eat coal!), and unless the vegetation is petrified, will escape anyway as it decays (swamp gas).  If you want to sequester carbon the low-tech way, the best way is to make furniture so that the tree will not release the carbon it gathered during its life when it rots.  Then you have to keep people from throwing it away or burning it…-Thor Johnsonhttp://www.scientificconservation.com

Grr.. can someone get rid of my other post — evidently my browser didn’t like the editor… I’ve also added some more stuff…I agree with much that is said here, but want to refine a couple of items:1.  On Nuclear - It doesn’t have to be Yucca Mountain.We can use those “spent fuel rods” if we reprocess them (currently done in Germany, blocked by a Carter Executive Order), or if we add smaller nuclear reactors (the CanDu reactor can burn nearly any nuclear fuel from spent fuel rods to unprocessed uranium. But it has a much lower power density than current designs).  Beyond Uranium, we have a large quantity of Thorium deposits that are feasilbe, but not currently used.  As I understand it, Thorium reactors should be much safer (but again, probably lower in power density than current Uranium reactors).  But right now, it seems that “everybody” is against nuclear reactors.2. It takes more energy to heat an apartment than to cool it,False.  The same principle used in the cooling can be used to heat; they’re called heat pumps.  But, having a single unit be able to heat -or- cool reduces the efficiency a bit so it may not be worth it if you don’t really need to heat (eg, if you have a heavy computer load and other sources of heat, you may not need central heat at all.  Most retail stores didn’t until they switched to the new T5 light bulbs).  Also… increasing the RH to 70% (if you don’t have a humidifier, bringing the temp from 40 to 70 will cause the RH to be around 30%) will make the room feel more comfortable more quickly than plain heat (but watch for condensation problems).The problem with global statements like that is that there are a myriad of ways to condition a space, and they’re each efficient in different areas (eg, an evaporative cooler works well in AZ, ok in TX, but in FL…)3. [To chazthetic] It already makes my blood boil when I hear a woman in the grocery store saying she traded in her 12 mpg suv for a 16 mpg I think you have fallen for what is starting to be called the MPG fallacy:  A jump from 12 MPG -> 16 MPG, while only 4 MPG, is a 33% improvement.  Somebody looking to pick a car to trade in and choosing between:    a) upgrade 12->16 MPG on the Family Van (spoot)     – or –    b) upgrade 22->30 MPG on working commuter carWould be better off choosing a:    a) 300 mile range goes from 25 gallons => 19 (6 gallons every 300 mi)    b) 300 miles goes from 14 gallons =>10 (4 gallons every 300 miles)Of course, it really matters how much the vehicle is used, but at the high end, you start running out of room to improve (turning on my AC in my 35 MPG focus drops the gas milage down to 31 MPG on current GA ethanol-laced gasoline).  But jumping from a “normal” Escape (14 MPG) to a Hybrid Escape (30 MPG) would always be worth it, even though the smug-emitting Prius owners consider a SUV-hybrid a step in the completely wrong direction (just on principle ya see… an Escape can never match the gas mileage of a compact car.  On the other hand, a compact car can never match the hauling ability and convenience of a SUV/Truck/Large car) .My real job is to prevent the “fading effect” from taking place on commercial buildings.  It’s not as sexy as “hybrids” or “cars” or “solar”, but study after study has shown that after the HVAC system gets tuned-up (in our lingo, recommissioned), the initial savings will decrease by 20% or more after 2 years of being left alone.Not sexy.  But it’s a part I know how to play.  And we all need to do our part.http://www.scientificconservation.com -Thor JohnsonPS.  OTOH, those that voice complaints that “solar is unusable because it can never be a base load” are equally bad:  you don’t need air conditioning (or 100% lighting in businesses) when the sun goes down and the people go home….