CO2 Now | CO2 Home

I've seen widgets on various web sites that track atmospheric CO2 and, in glancing at one, something caught my eye. I determined to visit the source site, called CO2 Now | CO2 Home to verify that what I'd noticed was accurate. Here's the image I looked at:

Now, what disturbed me is that the year over year increase was about 72% larger in the July, 2009 to July 2010 period (0.606%) than in the July, 2008 to July 2009 period (0.352%). This is quite disturbing in that the July 2009 to July 2010 period is one of subdued economic activity in much of the so-called developed world (to be fair, much of the previous period could also be described in this way).

Here's a brief graph of world GDP from 2005 to mid - 2010:

(Source: http://www.economicswebinstitute.org/ecdata.htm and http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTDECPROSPECTS/EXTGBLPROSPECTSAPRIL/0,,contentMDK:20370107~menuPK:659160~pagePK:2470434~piPK:4977459~theSitePK:659149,00.html)
Note that while world GDP declined for the first period noted in the CO2 concentration above and rose at about 3.3% for the second, the dip in GDP is not mirrored by a reduction in slope of the graph of atmospheric CO2 concentration for the period. I don't know whether the absence of a decrease in rate of growth of CO2 concentration is due to a statistical fluke, measurement error, volcanic eruption, or the increased use of coal to provide primary energy in emerging economies - China and India in particular. But an increased growth rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration without an increase in the rate of growth of economic activity is a disturbing data point.

Moldova??

I'd always just used Google Analytics to check my meager traffic flow, not noticing the "Stats" tab on my Blogger dashboard. I've been looking that over and it's pretty cool. But, amazingly, when I look at the "Audience" tab, for last week the country with the second largest number of pageviews on my blog was Moldova. That's right: USA; Moldova; Canada. On the all time list, Moldova is in sixth place behind: USA; Canada; Germany; Philippines; and Japan. What am I saying that's of keen interest to Moldovans? Please chime in!

xkcd on homeopathy

Click here to visit the original.

Subsidies, no, no subsidies...

One of the criticisms I read consistently of governmental encouragement of renewable energy (feed in tariffs, renewable portfolio standards, tax incentives, etc.) is that this artificially distorts markets, thereby leading to inefficiencies. "Let the free market decide" is the cry from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the American Petroleum Institute, etc.

So it strikes me as ludicrous and ironic to read the extent to which the oil industry relies on subsidies, and to read the rationalizations provided for it. I've mentioned many times that I'm philosophically inclined toward market-based policies but that I believe they'll be insufficient to get us through times of diminishing primary energy supplies at increasing prices and sporadic availability, together with climatic effects of burning fossil fuels with very large inertia with respect to delays between emissions changes and effects.

So what we seem to have here is proposing that technologies that could help with our energy and climate dilemmas fend for themselves while those that contribute most to the variety of problems receive massive subsidies. Can anyone call this sane? There is absolutely no question that we need, and will continue to need, fossil fuels in massive quantities far into the future. They are intrinsic to much more than the generation of electrical energy and liquid fuels for transportation. But converging events make weaning ourselves from those areas where it's possible on a generational time scale critical. Because corporations' only responsibility is to maximize shareholder value, and shareholders value reliable short term returns above all else whereas the needed developments are quite long term, market intervention will, I'm sorry to say, be necessary.

The "TRANS" system

I've run across a remarkable set of articles by an individual named Carl Johnson, who is beyond all doubt a lateral thinker. He has a high degree of mathematical and physical sophistication and the spectrum of issues he's contemplated is quite broad. He has a large set of articles on global warming, whose overall thrust is that "we're doomed," i.e., that the situation is dramatically worse than the worst case scenarios of the IPCC and the estimates of mainstream climatologists. I'm not going to go into those, but a starting point for those who'd like to is here.

But I'd like to look at an innovative transportation system Mr. Johnson designed in 1990, called the TRANS System. It involves "pods" in pneumatic tubes travelling cross country at 200 m.p.h., and locally at 60 m.p.h. and 30 m.p.h. The idea is to turn the "drag" concept upside down, the pod being propelled through concrete tubes by the drag force of air being pumped by at 230 m.p.h. Johnson also envisions elimination of wheel drag by lift provided by the Bernoulli effect. He ultimately envisions a system wherein people and goods can be transported to within two blocks of 98% of possible destinations in the U.S. at prices about 20% of today's and costs of 10% (the difference being used for reduction of the national debt).
There's no math in the linked page, though not because Mr. Johnson doesn't have abilities in that discipline - he's a graduate from the University of Chicago in "nuclear physics." There's lots of claims about the price to move a pound of freight or a pound of passengers. But there's no explanation of how those figures were derived. Beyond capital costs, of course (which Johnson also estimates), the primary operating expense would seem to be keeping hundreds of thousands of miles of air moving at 230 m.p.h. There are also costs associated with the various control systems he envisions.

While the state of research on such systems is not highly active, it's also not non-existent. A brief article with further references of the use of so-called "PCP" (pneumatic capsule pipeline) systems for freight transportation by Dr. Henry Liu of the International Freight Pipeline Society can be found here. It's clear from reading this article and others that Johnson's system represents a large jump in sophistication, particularly with respect to the velocities involved (over 100 meters/second vs. approximately 20 meters/second). Johnson also discusses a  "linefill ratio" (the proportion of the tube occupied by freight or passengers) of 50% where the state of the art using blowers is about 3% and the hope is to use linear induction motors to increase this to 15%. There is also an extensive article on utilization of a PCP system for freight transport in New York City here.

Let's think about the power involved in such a system. We'll ignore any change in potential energy required for elevation change. Using the D'Arcy-Weisbach equation and estimating things like the surface roughness of the inner surface of Johnson's concrete tube (he suggests a teflon lining and believes that, even with a Reynolds number on the order of 1.7*10^6, laminar flow can be maintained) and the operating pressure of the system, I can calculate a pressure drop of about 21.8. Pascals/meter. This is a loss of one atmosphere every approximately 4.6 kilometers. So, ignoring the mass of the cars (not particularly accurate since, according to Johnson's design, at peak capacity they might occupy on the order of one half the volume of a tube) we need enough power to provide a pressure boost of 21.8 Pascals in a distance of one meter and a diameter of two meters, or a volume of 3.14 m^3. This should be an amount of work of 21.8*3.14 or 68.5 joules. At 230 miles per hour, it needs to do this in 0.097 seconds. So the power required for that meter is 68.5 joules/.097 seconds, or about 704 watts.

Running some quick numbers for drag, lifting and moving the capsules would require another 440 watts for a subtotal of 1144 watts. Then, assuming a 3 meter long capsule with a mass of, say, 250 kilograms, accelerating it to 89.4 meters/second in maybe 30 seconds will take about 745 newtons. It will take 1340 meters to get to speed, so the power used in accelerating is 745 newtons*1340 meters/30 seconds or 33.3 kilowatts. Just as a rough estimate, in 100 kilometers, maybe 150 such accelerations are taking place, so the system must provide 150 capsules*33,300 kilowatts/100,000 meters or 50 watts/meter. Thus, the total estimated power required is, in round numbers, 1200 watts/meter. The energy requirements are starting to look "scary big." Does this level of power usage make any intuitive sense? Well, I have a vacuum cleaner that uses 11 amps at 110 volts for a power of 1210 watts. The vacuum cleaner is simply moving air, albeit turbulent even at much lower Reynolds number but through a much smaller area and over a shorter distance.

In any case, if I'm even close, a 100 kilometer tube would use 120 megawatts. Assuming that it's half full of capsules, and each capsule is 3 meters long, there are 16,600 capsules. Comparing this to cars, let's assume that 16,600 cars are moving at 55 m.p.h. and getting 25 m.p.g. These cars would use 10.1 gallons/second, each gallon containing 120*10^6 joules or 1.22*10^9 joules/second or watts. This is 1.22 gigawatts or 10.2 times as much power as the Trans system.

Now, there are many, MANY considerations beyond these factors. For example, no accounting of the primary energy (well to wheel for the cars, primary source to generator to fans for the Trans system) was done. And the system would use the energy to move the air regardless of whether there was a single capsule or the tube was filled to capacity whereas cars only use fuel when in use. But let's assume only 10% capacity utilization. The cars would still use about as much energy as the pods, and the pods would be almost four times as fast. Mr. Johnson may have a good idea from an energetic point of view. I wonder, though, how people would take to being in a fully enclosed capsule in a sealed tube?

*Edited to correct factor of 10 error. The advantage of the TRANS system is diminished considerably by this correction and likely constrained to be used in areas where high load factors are expected to be the norm.

A telling symptom of crackpottery

The anti-science cult has quite a few sub-cults: anti-vaccination; creation science and anti-evolution; 9/11 truthers; homeopathy supporters; climate change skeptics, etc. I have a secret fascination for reading such nonsense. This has been a guilty pleasure for me for quite a while - I also am drawn to watch, in fascinated horror, such as Benny Hinn, Robert Tilton (for a different take on Tilton, see here), and other "spiritual healers."

In perusing the web sites devoted to such belief systems (I say belief systems as opposed to bodies of knowledge) there's often an element of paranoia - "there's a huge, malign conspiracy to quash the truth, a truth to which I and those of like belief have access." One way this frequently expresses itself is in the demand for debate. See the comment at 10:16 on May 29, 2010 here, the touting of a debate at the Oxford Union here or the report of an "evolution debate" here for examples.

Why is this? Are questions of science, nature, and fact settled by debate? Obviously not. I actually participated in debate in High School and was coached in the skills necessary to prevail in a formal debate on such topics as: Resolved: Taxpayer funds should be used to flouridate Rockford, Illinois' drinking water. Of course, I'd need to be fully prepared to argue the affirmative or the negative side. It involved gathering facts that support either argument and being prepared to defend against such arguments gathered by the opposing side. The judging was quite formal and a winner was always declared.

This is what the supporters of creationism, anti-vax, homeopathy, etc. want - the ability to utilize clever tactics to convince an audience lacking in specialist knowledge for the purpose of persuading the greater public and thereby influencing public policy. But debating skills (at least insofar as convincing a non-expert audience on scientific topics) do not equate with the ability to ferret out the truth from disparate data. Either skill takes dedication and perseverance to develop; scientists choose the latter and thus may fall very short on the former.

Thus, when looking at blogs and web sites with viewpoints on subjects on which I'm not an expert (and no one really has a blog or web site arguing the arcana of the physics of acoustic propagation in steel or the acceptable level of heat input in a flux core weld), if I see a lot of clamoring for debate or the citation of the results of debate, I become immediately skeptical of the viewpoint being espoused.

A dip into the strident atheist, liberal pool

I read several of the blogs at the blog host ScienceBlogs. In fact several are on my blog roll. One that I don't link is Pharyngula. I've mentioned in a previous post the frustrations I've had commenting there. PZ Myers, the publisher (owner?) of the blog posted a cartoon lambasting libertarians (it was, IMHO, on point to an extent) and asking if they have a sense of humor. The self-righteous, holier than thou (but in a Godless way) chest thumping began immediately.

Now, I have libertarian leanings, though I well recognize the shortcomings of the doctrinaire libertarian agenda, particularly on a finite planet where we're going through all resources like an alcoholic goes through a bottle of gin (not speaking hypothetically here). But, being a glutton for punishment and suffering from SIWOTI syndrome, I waded in. The model of Pharyngula is as follows: PZ Myers writes on a subject of derision (typically involving one of a few subject areas such as intelligent design, theism, Catholicism in particular, etc.) and then the participants pile on and deride. It's almost competitive.

I didn't support the libertarian position per se but I pointed out that, for such an enlightened congregation, they sure did seem like a bunch of (quoting myself here - see comment #216) insufferable, self-congratulatory windbags after screen name Azkyroth declared a characteristic of libertarians to be (comment #26) "insufferable smug self-righteousness" without a hint of irony. Well, of course a spiralling war of name-calling ensued with me using such words as sycophant, accusing them of tribal and herd-like behavior, and mentioning that they had a devotion to PZ that seemed like worship of a god (as an aside, to offer a counterexample to my assertion that they simply fall in line, Rutee, Shrieking Harpy of Dooooom, pointed out that there had been disagreement on whether video games are art). I actually forswore name-calling after a few rounds, though I did state on multiple more occasions that I felt they were pack-like. I do and they are.

For my trouble, I was called: arsehole, asshole, fuckwit, arrogant idiot, Asshole of the Road (that's pretty clever, huh?), a sad little man, snarky asshole, fuckwit of the road, a moronic fucking asshole, and a dicknosed clownshoed fuckburger (though there was an element of irony in this last - see comment #367). The "troll" and "tone troll" accusations were plentiful, but that's to be expected. Then, in comment #377, a_ray_in_dilbert_space offered the following (quoted in its entirety):

KOTR, Have you in fact observed interactions here at Pharyngula? I would call your attention to something you might have missed. To wit, the blog functions in an almost entirely unregulated manner. Comments are posted immediately. No pre-monitoring. No censorship. And yet, the signal to noise ratio is higher here than at most blogs where monitoring is much more heavy-handed.

Now ask yourself: How does that work? How is it that a blog on evolution, biology, atheism and liberal politics is not completely overrun by the much more numerous and vociferous Faux News crowd? When you understand that and understand the role "tone" plays in that process, you might understand the dynamics here a bit better.

I think his point is that the insult hurling and name calling directed at dissenters keeps the signal to noise ratio high by keeping the riff raff out. I don't frequent Faux News (the closest I come is an occasional bout of self-flagellation at Watts Up With That) but, by reputation, the denizens thereof do not shy from such battles. I leave it to readers to conclude whether a_ray's point is well-taken.

The misrepresentations of my comments, the tortured logic, and the failure to comprehend in the zeal to take me down were manifest, but too numerous to list. As an example, Kagehi, in comment #231, was bemoaning the fact that in Arizona, you can't challenge being fired unless you can show that you were fired because you're in a protected class (among many other complaints about the perceived lack of employee rights in Arizona).

I replied as follows: "So, a job is your right? Should you also be able to force another company to hire you? Should the government determine how many employees your employer has? Where they locate their facilities? When you get promoted? What furniture you have in your office? What else? When a fired employee sues and loses, will the government pay the company for its defense? Will they implement any sort of penalty for such suits being brought frivolously?" Multiple subsequent comments, despite my pointing out that it was incorrect, assumed that I'd implied that Kagehi stated that these things had happened. I implied no such thing, but Kagehi clearly wants at least one of them to happen as evidenced by his complaint in #341 that companies can "refuse you work for purely arbitrary reasons."

All in all, I learned from it. But SIWOTI syndrome is a disease that has flareups, so it's possible I'll go back there again.

The consequences of turning

In my post on Highway m.p.g. I recommended always travelling in such a way that your destination is at a lower elevation than your starting point. And in my post on headwinds I believe I showed conclusively that one should always travel with, rather than against, the wind. But to these, I'd like to add another recommendation: always travel in such a way so as to have no need to turn.

Turning a vehicle uses extra fuel in an obvious way, i.e., it increases the distance traveled. But it uses extra fuel in another way as well. As noted by Sir Isaac Newton, changing the momentum of an object requires a force - this is his famous "second law of motion," commonly summarized as "F=m*a." But momentum is a vector quantity (it has both magnitude and direction) so changing direction at a constant speed means momentum is changing. This requires a force which the road applies to the vehicle through the tires (in reaction to the tires applying this force to the road - Newton's third law of motion). This force must ultimately originate in the prime mover of the vehicle and, for internal combustion driven vehicles, must come from the burning of fossil fuels.

So how much fuel are we talking about here? I've calculated the forces involved in traveling in a straight and level line at 55 m.p.h. before, in my vehicle this takes a force of about 805 newtons. If I look at a circle with a circumference of 3.667 miles (this was chosen only to make it a four minute circle at 55 m.p.h.) and hence a radius of 939.2 meters (slightly less than a kilometer) then, utilizing the equation for centripetal force (F=m*(v^2/r)) I can determine that the force required to turn the vehicle is 1,777 newtons. This force must be developed in addition to the 805 newtons required to overcome aerodynamic drag and rolling resistance. Thus, driving in this particular circle more than triples the amount of force required at 55 m.p.h. and hence more than  triples the fuel used to travel any given distance in this manner.

Now, obviously, unless you have a number and a bunch of corporate logos on your car, you won't be driving continuously in a circle but this does illustrate the effect of having to apply the force required to make the car turn. Thus Rob's rules of fuel efficient driving are as follows:

1. Travel downhill only
2. Travel downwind only
3. Do not turn

Follow these three simple rules and I promise you dramatically improved gas mileage!

Update: DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU! In my rush to get a post done in April, I made the simplest of freshman physics errors. Thanks to Ed Davies (see comments) for causing me to give it enough thought to see the error.  There's no question about the centripetal force, however, no energy is added to the car. This makes sense - its mass doesn't change (reduces slightly, actually, as fuel is burned); it's speed doesn't change; and it doesn't change its position in a field. So both its kinetic and potential energy are constant. What gives? Well, energy is added by work being done on an object. It's true that the road exerts a force on my vehicle but that force is perpendicular to the instantaneous displacement of the vehicle at all times. The centripetal (road on car) force is directed to the center of the circular path, the displacement is tangential. Work is the product of force times displacement IN THE DIRECTION OF THE FORCE (defined as the vector dot product of the force and the displacement). Since there is never any displacement in the direction of the force, no work is done on the vehicle and thus no energy is added and the engine needn't do any more work.

As to my comment about the airplane, it stays at a constant altitude and slows down, thus its energy is reduced. So, does that mean that it's doing work on its environment? It does, reflected in the motion of the air displaced.

The rules will still work - a straight path is the shortest so you'll use less fuel by always travelling in a straight line. But your miles per gallon won't go up. And I could quibble by saying that taking turns deforms the tires and point out the hysteresis losses in going into and out of turns. But really, I just goofed.

How does one blush online?

Not to pooh pooh NASA, MIT, et al, but...

In my blog list is a link to a site entitled "Altternative Energy. It's an interesting site and frequently has items well worth reading and other times more silly or trivial. But today I saw an article about an aircraft called the "Puffin. This is a concept aircraft designed by one Mark Moore, a NASA aerospace engineer. The article quotes briefly from and links to the NASA site about the Puffin.

It's a single person vehicle ostensibly capable of vertical take offs and landings and a top speed of 150 m.p.h. (thought it's stated that the Puffin is more efficient at lower speeds). It's 12 feet long with a wingspan of 14.5 feet. It's stated to weigh 300 pounds empty, with 100 pounds for batteries and 200 pounds of payload (pilot and baggage). It's electrically powered and its motors develop 60 horsepower. Its range "with current battery technology" is stated to be about 50 miles.

Well. First, it doesn't exist, even as a prototype. But Analytical Mechanics Associates has produced an animation that can be seen in a YouTube video. According to the video, a one third scale validation model was to have been tested in March for hover capability, with transition to forward flight demonstrated after that. I have been unable to determine if these test flights have actually taken place.

But what about the plausibility of such a craft? Let's start with battery capacity. I'm going to assume the Puffin will achieve its 50 mile range at 100 m.p.h. I'll also assume that the 60 horsepower are required to achieve the top speed of 150 m.p.h. Since power required varies generally with the cube of speed for forces, such as aerodynamic drag, that vary with the square of speed, I can roughly estimate that the Puffin will require 60/1.5^3 (1.5 is the ratio of 150 m.p.h. to 100 m.p.h.) or about 17.8 horsepower. I'll be generous to the claims and assume zero reserves of energy. Thus, the batteries must supply 17.8 horsepower for 30 minutes to go 50 miles at 100 m.p.h. Googling (17.8 horsepwer)*30 minutes in kilowatt hours returns the conversion to the 6.64 kilowatt hours that are required.

Moving on to this excellent battery site I find that Lithium-ion batteries have the highest energy density available currently at 128 watt-hours/kilogram. Thus, I'll need 6,640/128 or 51.9 kilograms of batteries. This mass weighs 114 pounds here on Earth. This 6,640 watt-hour battery pack will cost an estimated $28,000.

For fun, I ran through the same calculation at 50 m.p.h. (the stalling speed in forward flight is not indicated, nor are such aerodynamic characteristics as flat plate area, propeller efficiency, lift/drag ratios at various speeds, etc.) and determined that, with no energy to spare the batteries must store 1,660 watt-hours of energy weighing 28.6 pounds and costing $7,090. But this battery pack could only maintain 150 m.p.h. for a little over two minutes.

OK, let's finally figure a 100 pound Li-ion battery pack. This 45.4 kilogram pack should provide about 5,810 watt hours. That capacity will provide 60 horsepower for just slightly under eight minutes. And remember, this is to "dry tanks" and includes no increment for such things as vertical takeoff and transition to level flight (very energy intensive phases for aerial vehicles with which I'm familiar). Finally, let's realistically assume that it would be nice to have a 10% reserve. How fast can you fly to have a 50 mile range with the 100 pound battery pack and have such a reserve? It's kind of a nitpicky problem in algebra and units, but the answer is about 89 m.p.h.

So my conclusion is that, while the claims may not actually be false, they seem quite misleading. You may be able to go 50 miles (and glide, powerless, to a landing); you may be able to go 150 m.p.h.; you may be able to take off vertically with a payload of 200 pounds; but you won't be able to load up 200 pounds, take off vertically, and fly 50 miles at 150 m.p.h. to your destination.

PA32R-301T

That's the model number of my Piper Saratoga, a 1981 model. Now, I know what you're thinking (at least if you haven't followed my blog for long and maybe even if you have). What's a guy who writes about energy savings, fuel efficiency, and peak oil doing in a private airplane?

The answer is that I've wanted to fly since being a small child and  thus I acquired my Airman Certificate ("pilot's license") in 1981. In 2001, well before I began to concern myself with energy related matters, I acquired the airplane. I've been all over the country in it, and have flown it for around 500 hours.

As transportation security measures have increased, the attractiveness of driving to the hangar, performing the preflight inspection, taxiing out and flying to the airport nearest my destination (as opposed to an air carrier airport) becomes more and more attractive. This increases the range I'm willing to fly myself. There are drawbacks as well: I don't have the weather capabilities of the airlines; outside of about 650 (nautical or 748 statute) miles I'll need to stop for fuel; adverse winds have a huge effect on ground speed; and it's quite costly. For very long distances, the airlines are significantly faster though with the hub and spoke system, one hour early arrivals, waiting for baggage, and other delays, the distance at which airlines become faster door to door is longer than one might think. Also, for business meetings, having my transportation ready when I am means that I don't have to leave early to catch my flight.

Parsing the model number, PA stands for Piper Aircraft, it's the 32 series (no significance to that), R indicates that its landing gear is retractable (chicks don't dig fixed gear), 301 is the maximum continuous horsepower of the Lycoming TIO540-S1AD engine (actually, it's one more for some obscure reason), and T indicates turbocharging. As to the engine, T is turbocharged, I is injected, O is (horizontally) opposed (cylinders), 540 cubic inches is the displacement. It's a "dash S1AD" variant, the nomenclature has no obvious significance.

So I have a turbocharged aircraft capable of developing about 300 horsepower. This power is only used on takeoff and initial climb, typical cruise power is about 70% of this number or about 210 horsepower. Just for fun, if I assume that the engine efficiency at this power setting is 25% and that there are about 125*10^6 joules in a gallon of avgas, my airplane should burn 18.04 gallons/hour. I actually run at a flow of about 18 gallons/hour as shown on my fuel flow meter (pilots, obviously continuously concerned with fuel, think in terms of pounds or gallons per hour). As I've repeatedly stated, I just love it when calculations and data or two methods of calculation agree.

These 18 gallons at 13,000 feet will typically take me about 168 nautical miles or 193 statue miles (the "knot" is one nautical mile or 6080 feet per hour). So, in terrestrial terms, I get 193/18 or 10.7 m.p.g. Not really so good. The Saratoga is known as a bit of a sky-borne SUV, it has six seats and three baggage areas. It's a little draggy and a bit heavy in comparison to piston single engine airplanes.

For a given amount of shaft power, the airspeed achieved (at any particular "density altitude") is controlled by propeller efficiency and total drag. I can increase my range and consequently my "specific range" (miles per gallon) by flying at slower airspeeds. At about 140 knots (a bit over 160 m.p.h) I can reduce the fuel flow to around 10 gallons/hour. This works out to 16 m.p.g., more along the lines of what you might expect for a fuel thirsty road vehicle.

But one of the main reasons people buy airplanes is to go fast, and so I rarely use this method. It can, however, result in a quicker trip if the extended range results in the elimination of a fuel stop. Such a stop typically adds about 45 minutes to a trip. But really, by the time I've been in the plane over five hours, I'm ready for a stop.

Finally, if I put passengers in three of the five seats remaining (more than that results in the need to fly with partial fuel loads, thus reducing range) I can achieve a reasonable figure for "passenger miles per gallon" of 42.8. To be candid, that rarely happens though. No amount of mental gymnastics can make N8409Y a fuel efficient way to travel.

A man whose self-love knows no bounds

My greatest daily number of hits ever came subsequent to my Psychologist in the house post. The visitors came primarily from Marc Morano's "Climate Depot" site. He's a "denialist" (from the mainstream climatology side) or a "skeptic" (from those who disagree with mainstream climatology on anthropogenic global warming) whose specialty seems to be torpedoing what he perceives to be the liberal dogma. Among other accomplishments, he spearheaded the Swift Boat attack on Presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004.

There's no question that he's a superb ex tempore debater and an effective advocate for the Alfred E. Neuman position on anthropogenic global warming. His site claims to be a clearinghouse for news on climate science and policy, but it had best be a certain kind of news.

But if there's one thing Morano loves more than s _ _ _ stirring, it's Marc Morano. He's a veritable mother lode of self-citation. In order to keep track of his self-citation, I'm going to start logging the occurrences of "Morano" on his site. I'll periodically report, with raw data as well as trend analysis. Does anyone think I can get Steve McIntyre interested? In any event, yesterday's count was 24, today's is 26.

Update: Climate Depot's "Morano" count hovered in the mid '20s for a couple of weeks; but in the last couple of days has dropped to four. I wonder if he stopped by here?

Leasing the sun

There may be many such firms but I've been hearing radio commercials for a company called "Solar City." The business model is to provide rooftop photovoltaic systems at little or no initial cost. Solar City maintains ownership of the system and leases it to the home or business owner. The claim is that the total cost to the owner (lease payment plus paying for the much smaller amount of electricity used) is less than the electric bill prior to installing the system. They have a javascript application in which you install such information as your typical electric bill, your zip code (then followed by actually pointing to your house on a map), your roof slope and direction, and your electricity provider. It then returns a 15 year projection of savings, with a graphical representation of lease payments, electric bills, and the electric bills that would have been paid. There's an estimated rate of increase built in. The result of my initial inquiry looks like this:

Note that, at the outset, I can save $4.00/month. Not a lot. But I used my current electric energy usage. What if I significantly increase my usage by the purchase of a Nissan Leaf? In my post on the subject I estimated that I'd need to utilize about 17.5 kilowatt hours per day to charge the Leaf. Now, of course, I'd be charging it during the daytime rather than at night so the system would need to be sized for my use other than the Leaf plus the 17.5 kilowatt hours per day, a total I'd estimate at about 66 kilowatt hours per day. Though the javascript application doesn't allow one to play with such fine points as what can be run during the day and during the night and the system doesn't allow for storage, adding the Leaf makes a difference:

Ah, $7/month, now we're getting somewhere. Of course, the Leaf is also busily saving me money. Further, it's better to have $7/month than not to have it and I could save a few bucks more by replacing my wife's car with a Leaf. Or not.

Now, in principle, I've eliminated a large portion of my carbon footprint (moreso if I can coerce persuade my wife as well). If I could really do so, and if the solar system replaced 90% of of my household electricity and all of the energy use of mine and my wife's cars, using the information used in preparing this post and this post I can estimate that as much as 25% of my family's carbon footprint could be eliminated. This is well under the 95% that would appear to be required, but it's better than replacing incandescent bulbs with compact florescent bulbs. After appropriate due diligence, I may do so.

Baseball: thirsty sport

I follow a few sports, chief among them are Major Leauge Baseball, NFL Football, college football, and NHRA drag racing. I'm not a zealot and can't quote statistics as many can but I'm emotionally invested in the outcomes. But clearly, these sports and all others require the use of some form of fossil fuels; would their elimination make a big difference in our overall consumption? As I've mentioned, the "Fermi Problem approach" to such questions appeals to me. As it turns out though, it's a difficult problem, at least for me.

I've completed my Fermi analysis of three sports (Major League Baseball, college football, and NFL football). I did this at a very superficial level, only estimating the fuel used by the fans driving to the games and travel by the participating teams. Such a calculation involves estimating the answers to a myriad of data points, among others: how many games per season; how many fans at each game; how many fans in each vehicle attending the game; how far the average vehicle traveled to and from the game; what is the average fuel economy of the vehicle used; how far and by what means did the visiting team travel to the home team's venue; what is the fuel economy of the means utilized by the visiting team; and others. I didn't estimate the coal burned in field lighting, the natural gas used in heating the hot dogs and nacho cheese, the coal burned to power the HDTVs watched by fans not actually attending the game, and many others.

With those limitations in mind, the results of my speculation are as follows (in decreasing order of fuel used):

• College Football: 9.0*10^6 barrels/year
• Major League Baseball: 4.2*10^6 barrels/year
• NFL Football: 1.0*10^6 barrels/year

I arbitrarily speculate that NBA basketball uses considerably less fuel than Major League Baseball not because an NBA team plays fewer games per season (since visiting teams in baseball typically play several consecutive games at each location) but rather because the venues are smaller and thus fewer fans travel to each game. Similar considerations apply to hockey. I think each of the major motor sports (NHRA, NASCAR, IRL) use much less still, because there is only a single event each active week, though it extends over multiple days. A similar consideration applies to golf.

In each of the sports I estimated, by far the largest fuel use was by fans traveling to the games. This use was typically an order of magnitude larger than that by team travel (anywhere from 8 to 40 times as large). And finally, the use by the three sports I estimated totals about 0.19% of our nation's annual oil consumption of about 7.5*10^9 barrels/year. Let's suppose that the sports I've looked at represent 10% of the oil consumed in all sports, then "sport" would be responsible for about 2% of U.S. oil consumption. I suspect this is high, since the fuel is consumed primarily by individuals and the "average person" I know likely doesn't use 2% of her oil consumption on sports. Thus, elimination of all spectator sporting activities is yet one more way not to get us out of our energy dilemma.

34 Max?

Through a series of links, I wound up at a blog advocating mechanically (or electronically, I presume) limiting the maximum speed of passenger vehicles to 55 kilometers/hour (34 m.p.h.). Scott (the blog's publisher) lists the benefits, among others as: elimination of oil imports; reduction of CO2 emissions to below 1970's levels;
reduced loss of life and reduced injuries in motor vehicle accidents; reduced air pollution from exhaust; reduced particulates from tire wear; reduced energy in automobile manufacturing due to smaller and lighter components; reduced expenditure for infrastructure maintenance; increased motivation to use (now comparatively much faster) public transportation; and others.

He addresses many of the objections he anticipates as well, though I doubt that many who contemplate his suggestion will agree that he has adequately done so. He moderates his comments and states that a huge portion of the comments he's received consist only of name calling and doesn't publish them. In fact, there are very few comments published. I left several; time will tell if he publishes them.

And though a few of the comments I posted related to his erroneous use of "exponentially" and his stating that aerodynamic drag (as opposed to power required to overcome it) varies with the cube of speed (rather than the square), my main point of contention was that he makes broad claims (elimination of oil imports, reduction of CO2 emissions to pre-1970's levels) with no data or calculations to support them. This is something I try never to do, as claims without backup are plentiful on the 'tubes. I'm willing to be convinced, but he'll have to convince me.

Further, I am instinctively opposed to mandates and top down controls, so I suggested that the externalities of fast driving be paid for by those doing the driving, probably by a tax. With OBD-II on all modern cars, this could easily be accomplished at registration renewal time without big brother-like GPS tracking. The idea would be that people would be taxed on the extent to which they exceeded, on average, some speed and probably multiplied by the number of miles driven. I can already hear the howling!

But let me do his job and suppose such a thing was done. Would we eliminate oil imports? This needs to be a two part question because we'd use less energy to travel and use less energy to manufacture automobiles. For the first part, I'm going to assume that the adjustment has been made and that enough of the new variety of cars optimized for such a maximum speed are on the road to use them as the de facto standard. In the real world, that will take a while but let's see where it leads us.

We used (in 2005) 320,500,000 gallons of gasoline per day at  17.2 m.p.g.  I made liberal (but not completely unrealistic) assumptions on vehicle characteristics of weight, drag coefficient, rolling resistance, and area and calculated in the usual way - details can be provided if requested- and determined that we'd be able to get vehicles achieving about 134 m.p.g. after this rule is implemented and the situation stabilizes as described. At that rate, we'd save about 87.2% of the gasoline we now use, or 279,000,000 gallons per day. Now, we get about 19.5 gallons out of a barrel of oil, so we'd save about 14.3 million barrels per day. This is, in fact, more than we import so Scott is correct. This doesn't even include savings from reduced energy use in manufacturing lighter vehicles. I'll attack that, and CO2, in a subsequent post.

Who's in?

The Nissan Leaf

I've posted a couple of times on supplying the necessary electrical energy to replace our passenger automobile fleet with electric vehicles, and I also discussed the Chevy Volt. An all-electric vehicle appears ready to enter the fray in late 2010 - the Nissan Leaf. While Nissan seems to be playing it close to the vest (the vehicle's weight and price as well as many other specifications are not given), between Nissan's site and Autoblog's site some conclusions can be reached.

Let's look at the combined aerodynamic and rolling resistance efficiency of the vehicle. The Leaf is claimed to deliver about 100 miles on a full charge, the lithium ion battery pack capacity is stated to be 24 kilowatt-hours or about 86.4 megajoules. The electric motor is less than 100% efficient in its use of the energy in its source. Based on this page and the 80 kilowatt (or 107 horsepower) motor in the Leaf I'll use 92% (the table shows the minimum as 91.7%). Also, the Leaf site discusses "0% to 100% charge" so I'm going to assume that the vehicle uses all 24 kilowatt-hours of energy in the battery pack to go 100 miles. Thus, the Leaf uses .92*24=22.1 kilowatt hours or 79.6 megajoules to go 100 miles.

How does this compare to "miles per gallon?" The 79.6 megajoules is the energy in about .66 gallons of gasoline, but the internal combustion engine is quite inefficient so I'll use 22%. Then we'd be considering a car that goes 100 miles on (0.66/0.22) or about 3 gallons. Thus, we're looking at a car whose efficiency in terms of aerodynamics and rolling resistance is about that of a gasoline burning car getting 33 m.p.g. Seems quite reasonable, though certainly not awe inspiring.

How about cost? I drive about 62 miles per day year around, so I'd use about 62/100 of a full charge, or about 14.9 kilowatt-hours from the battery pack. Let's assume the charging system is 85% efficient, so I need (14.9/.85) or 17.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity. This would probably be at a marginal rate of $0.17/kilowatt-hour since I'd invariably be over my baseline rate with the City of Anaheim. So I'd spend 17.5*0.17 or  $3.01 per day on energy to drive. This is, of course, $3.01/62 or $0.049/mile. Right now in my Land Rover LR3 HSE I'm spending about $0.14/mile on gasoline. The Leaf would provide considerable savings, amounting, in the course of a year, to about $2,060. Certainly, that's nothing at which to sneeze (grammatical pedant that I am).

As to performance, the Leaf boasts a torque (from a dead stop) of  280 Newton-meters (208 pound-feet) and a top speed of over 140 km/h (87 mph). It will accept a full charge from a compatible 220 volt system in about 8 hours, about twice that from a 110 volt circuit. At a suitable quick charge station, it will take an 80% charge in under half an hour and a boost good for about 35 miles in about 10 minutes. Such suitable stations are, at the moment, mostly a distant dream however.

What about creature comforts? It appears to be quite comfortable, modern, and light. It will have room for at least four adults, MP3 connections via USB, a proprietary system built into the satellite navigation system to indicate charging facilities within range, systems to allow one to receive emails from the car on their smart phone and to control certain functions (heating, cooling, etc.) remotely via that smart phone. All things considered, I'm going to look very closely at the vehicle when it becomes available.

Addendum: How much might I reduce my costs if I built a solar charging system to charge the vehicle's battery pack during my working hours? I went here to find the insolation available, using average insolation, the month of March, and a horizontal flat plate to see this map:

Conservatively, 4.5 kilowatt-hours/meter^2/day are available on average. If I'm fortunate, maybe I can create a collector of 2 meter^2. If I'm even more fortunate and technology smiles, perhaps I can find cells with 18% efficiency and provide circuitry to charge the vehicle. Thus, I'd get 2*4.5 kilowatt-hours*0.18 or about 1.6 kilowatt-hours. This would be enough to bring the vehicle from, say, 65% charged to 71.7% or to go a little less than an extra seven miles.  To bring it from fully discharged to fully charged would take a little under 15 days. I can do perhaps a little under twice as well in June but still, seemingly not worth the trouble and expense.

More reasons to be embarrassed to be called conservative

I am really not interested in having this become a political blog but, as mentioned in earlier posts, I want to be conservative. That is, I want to conserve our natural and cultural heritage, I want to conserve our resources, our civil liberties as enshrined in the Bill of Rights and elsewhere in the Constitution and its amendments, I want to conserve the rule of law, I want to conserve what's left of our nation's wealth.

So what am I to make of the descriptor "conservative" being used to characterize people who hold opinions such as those expressed by the participants in this clip? Here we see, as we saw with Bush, a celebration of intellectual laziness in the guise of condemning the "elite." We wouldn't think of such condemnation of elite athletes, but by God let no one more learned than Homer Simpson dare to govern us.

When one is expected to apologize for holding informed opinion based on study and inquiry and to celebrate a so-called "leader" who can't remember the list "energy, budget tax cuts, lift American spirits" it's about time to pack it in.

The Onion vs. The Science Channel

I've mentioned on several occasions my level of disappointment with the Discovery Network's lineup of channels and shows and the extent to which they have debased the original concept of bringing some level of scientific authenticity to the wasteland that is television. But a big hat tip to Michael at Only In It For The Gold for pointing me to the far superior Onion treatment.



Udate: So I'm watching "G Word " ("G" is for green, I suppose) on Planet Green (a Discovery Channel) and the host, Summer Rayne (think Johnny Rivers - "taps at my window"), is in Abilene, TX interviewing someone from AES Energy Systems at their Buffalo Gap wind energy facility. It's not really bad until Ned Hall, their President, says "this machine is 1.5 megawatts." Summer asks "and what does that mean?" Hall says "it's enough electricity for your home for the whole year." Ummm, an analogous inanity would be me saying "my car goes 125 miles per hour. That's enough to go from here to San Francisco." And this, let me repeat, is the President of an energy company.

Climate "reparations"

In my post on my family's carbon footprint I concluded that we are major offenders. My friend Michael Tobis of the blog "Only In It For The Gold" provided a link to an interview by Amy Goodman of the Democracy Now web site, television, and radio program. The interview was with Naomi Klein, an author and journalist with a decidedly anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, some would say anti-western point of view (though I snarkily note that her books are for sale at the usual outlets).



The interview centered on the contention that the (primarily western) countries most responsible for the carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gas) emissions should be responsible for both the most drastic reductions in emission rates (i.e., primarily in the reduction in the burning of fossil fuels) and for providing the capital to developing countries likely to be most affected by climate change for mitigation of the effects of climate change and for steering their economies toward a trajectory of sustainable development. This latter is considered to be much more expensive than the non-sustainable model exemplified by western economies.



This certainly seems to be a reasonable position at the outset - we in the U.S. emit at about five times the worldwide average per capita and, until recently, were the largest emitter as a nation. China has now surpassed us as a nation, and this will be of note later in this post. Klein characterizes this position as "you broke it, you bought it."



We've certainly benefited from our emissions, achieving a standard of living to which many citizens of the countries demanding "reparations" aspire and doing so by converting fossil fuel to carbon dioxide and water at prodigious rates. So is it really as simple as "you Americans have emitted the carbon dioxide that will drive climate change. You must pay for the mitigation and you must pay us to develop in a way different than the one you chose."



Let's look at China and the U.S. The Union of Concerned Scientists web site shows that, in 2006 the U.S. emitted 5902.75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, while China emitted 6017.69 million metric tons. For the U.S., this is 19.78 metric tons per capita, while for China it's 4.58 metric tons. That makes us four times as bad, right?



Sorry, I don't totally accept that. If we're "bad" for our per capita emissions, then why is China not equally "bad" for its population? The fact is, the Earth doesn't care whether a ton of carbon dioxide was emitted by one person or by five. China's land area is almost identical to that of the U.S., so it's not as if their percentage of the land area of the Earth somehow justifies their enormous population. And as China's wealth increases so will its emissions, despite China's pledge to reduce its so-called "carbon intensity."



What, then, for countries such as Bangladesh? Here's a country that is inundated regularly by flooding and is desperately poor. And yet it's the seventh most populous country in the world and has a population density 35 times that of the United States. That density has increased by about 2 1/2 times since 1970. When looked at in terms of CO2 emissions per capita, the U.S. is about 709 times as intensive as Bangladesh. When looked at by CO2 emissions per U.S. dollar of purchasing power parity adjusted GDP, the U.S. is about twice as intensive (this reflects the extremely low GDP of Bangladesh). Finally, when looked at in terms of CO2 per unit of land area, the U.S. is about 2.2 times as intensive, reflecting the large population of Bangladesh compared to the relatively small land area. Interestingly, Bangladesh has a higher economic output per unit of land area than the U.S.



While one can endlessly play games with countries' numerical data, I want to make the point that the contention that it's as easy as requiring the "rich" countries to pay for all consequences of atmospheric CO2 and for the sustainable development of the developing (poorer) nations is naive. This would, in many cases, merely be rewarding overpopulation. Overpopulation is the 700 pound gorilla in the room and, no matter what else we do or stop doing, if we don't control population it's all for naught.



No one should think, based on this, that I believe that we as a country, or that I individually can wash our/my hands of responsibility. We certainly have a huge role to play in emissions reduction, mitigation, sustainable development, and humanitarian aid to countries who "missed the boat" on the easy and carefree exploitation of fossil fuels. But totaling each country's cumulative emissions, dividing into world cumulative emissions to derive the fraction of "responsibility" for reduction, mitigation, and sustainable development investment is not something that I believe is right or that I could support.

Mundane examples of energy

I was walking up the hill to my house and started to think about energy. I thought I'd give a few examples. For starters, my "resting metabolism" is somewhere around 1900 kilocalories per day. This is energy per unit of time, or power. Using Google's terrific calculator, this converts to a more familiar figure for power, 92 watts. So it takes about the same amount of energy to run me for an hour as to light a small room for an hour.



OK, now how about the hill? Using Google Earth I find that I gained 91.1 meters in elevation on the climb. Using the National Geodetic Society's Surface Gravity Predictor I find my local gravitational acceleration to be 9.795 meters/second^2, or as Rhett over at Dot Physics prefers, 9.795 Newtons/kilogram. I know this rounds to 9.80 but it's kind of cool to find and use the more precise number. My mass is an embarrassing 84.82 kilograms, so raising it up that hill requires converting 84.82*9.795*91.1 (mass*gravitational acceleration*height) or 75,690 joules of food energy to do the work to accomplish. This is 18 kilocalories (the type referred to in nutritional discussions as "calories")or a tiny bit over four plain chocolate M&M's. I don't use the energy in the M&M's with 100% efficiency though. In this post I estimated an efficiency of 11% to 14% so I'll figure that I'd need to eat about eight times as much fuel energy or 32 plain chocolate M&M's.



Of course more is burned since I'm lifting my feet up and down, swinging my arms, etc. To estimate this, I'll add a "walking briskly" amount to the climb energy. The linked site says I'll burn about 460 kilocalories/hour in my "brisk walk." I run down the hill and walk up, so I'm going to speculate that the running aspect makes up for the energy gain of going down hill. I do try to keep my heart rate in the so-called training zone so this shouldn't be too far off. This run/walk takes me about 42 minutes, and so should burn about (42/60)*460 or 322 kilocalories. Adding the 18, my exercise burned about 340 kilocalories or 1,420,000 joules. This is also about 395 watt hours, so this amount of energy will light a room (with a 100 watt bulb) for about four hours. It's also the amount of heat energy released by the gasoline in about one and a half shot glasses. My Land Rover LR3 HSE would possess this amount of kinetic energy (not counting the energy of the rotating masses) when traveling at about 73 m.p.h.

But seriously folks...

I was watching "Planet Mechanics" (a mildly interesting show that won't save the world but makes more sense than the silly "Discovery Project Earth" series). While reading Dr. Michael Tobis' latest post in his blog "Only In It For The Gold" during a commercial break, I heard, out of the corner of my ear, a commercial for Dr. Frank's Joint and Muscle Pain Relief." The anecdotal claims being made were impressive, so I listened a little more closely and heard the word "homeopathic." Quoting a famous line from the history of my beloved White Sox, "say it ain't so Joe!"



One of my constant sorrows is the susceptibility of the American public (the only public with which I'm familiar) to the most ludicrous pseudoscientific claptrap. But to see such a product advertised on a network representing itself as educational was shocking.



Delving into the website, I perused the producer's explanation of homeopathic cures and of so-called "homeopathic provings" which they take care to explain are "entirely different than the scientific double blind study methods most people are familiar with." I just bet they are. Allow me to quote further from the site: "Homeopathic "provings" are, in essence, the proof that homeopathic scientists and doctors use to demonstrate to themselves that specific homeopathic ingredients work for specific symptoms" (emphasis mine). Nope, I'm not kidding.



The idea, as I understand it, is that you expose healthy subjects to random substances and see what symptoms are caused. Then you take the substance, dilute and agitate the substance in a special procedure ritual called "succussing" to concentrations as low as one trillionth the original (or even lower). This is then used to cure the symptom caused by the substance in its original concentration. You just can't make this stuff up (though Samuel Hahnemann could).



Of course, the practitioners of this lunacy are immersed in conspiracy theories revolving around the iron grip of "big pharma" and "allopaths" (i.e., real doctors) controlling the media, the research institutions, etc. I haven't the patience to debunk this hooey, though such sites as Quackwatch do an excellent job of it. But it pains me to see people encouraged to send money to such charlatans on an educational channel.



Update: In my noodling around to find information on this bunkum, I happened upon this site. I may have to change my template.



Update 2: Looking at their "Our Formula" page, I note that they claim 10 "homeopathic ingredients." Though there seems to be a mathematical error wherein they think 10^-6 is one ten millionth and they claim that all ingredients are diluted "one trillion times or more," it appears as if five of the ingredients are diluted to one millionth of their original concentration and five were diluted to 1 part in 10^30. Hmmm... It looks like the container holds 40ml of "substance." Considering that Avogadro's number (the number of molecules in a mole of the substance) is about 6*10^23 and a mole of water is about 18 cm^3 (or 18ml) and this is mostly water at 1 g/cm^3, there are probably somewhere on the order of 2.2 moles or 1.2*10^24 molecules in a bottle. For the ingredients being diluted to 1 part in 10^30, this means there's about a chance in 800,000 that a molecule of any such ingredient will be found in a bottle. Seriously.