Solar flare threatens to disrupt Earth's communications and power

"Richard Tobin" wrote in message
...
In article , Rick wrote:


I think it was an American politician who said something along the lines
of,
'that maybe we spend far too much time trying to legislate against
Darwinism
for our own good'..

Yes, American politicians are known for their stupidity.



Who knows, if they keep on trying they might eventually become as good at it
as ours..

On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:31:47 GMT, Paul Ratcliffe wrote:

This true but only cover 0.1% of the land area and you still have
45.2 Terra Watts. Total UK energy demand (electricity, gas, oil,
everything else etc) is reckoned to be only 0.3 Terra Watts. UK
electricity only, peak, mid winter, is about 0.06 Terra Watts.

Oh dear, there are still people in this thread who are mixing up
power and energy, which is hardly a clever basis on which to argue.
Not just your good self though...

Not convinced Paul. Care to expand on where I have gone wrong in the
calculations 'cause I can't see it. I admit to struggling so help is
required.

The UK's electricity demand is measured in GW and is currently
something over 40GW ie the UK is "converting" 40,000,000,000 joules
per secound.

I've made an assumption that 50W/m^2 is arriving and multiplied that
by and area giving several tens of GW (notionally) available. As I
see it these are directly comaparble scales as they are both in
Watts.

In this context we aren't interested in how many joules have been
expended per unit time just that they are more arriving "faster" than
they are being "consumed". ie. there is a surplus.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 6/10/11 11:04 AM, Richard Tobin wrote:
Yes, American politicians are known for their stupidity.

Yes, politicians are known for their 'stupidity'.

gr, hwh

On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 12:14:26 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig
wrote:

It has been simply demonstrated that we don't receive enough solar
radiation globally to match our global electric power requirement, at
present levels of demand. This means it is *impossible* to use
'renewable' sources to provide all our electricity -- we *must* use up
scarce resources if we continue global power demand as at present.

That might be true only if (a) such a demonstration has scientific
weight, and (b) that solar power is the only possible renewable source
of energy. We know that's not the case - other renewables are
available, so it's quite possible that a combiation of solar + others
would be enough.

I'm sure some proper figures are available - unfortunately debates
about such things on the internet are almost universally
insufficiently rigorous sources of hard facts.

--

"Zero Tolerance" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 12:14:26 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig
wrote:

It has been simply demonstrated that we don't receive enough solar
radiation globally to match our global electric power requirement, at
present levels of demand. This means it is *impossible* to use
'renewable' sources to provide all our electricity -- we *must* use up
scarce resources if we continue global power demand as at present.

That might be true only if (a) such a demonstration has scientific
weight, and (b) that solar power is the only possible renewable source
of energy. We know that's not the case - other renewables are
available, so it's quite possible that a combiation of solar + others
would be enough.

I'm sure some proper figures are available - unfortunately debates
about such things on the internet are almost universally
insufficiently rigorous sources of hard facts.

--

there are only two renewable sources of energy: solar and nuclear.
Everything else is a transfer system.

On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:12:33 +0100, "Geoff Pearson"
wrote:


"Zero Tolerance" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 12:14:26 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig
wrote:

It has been simply demonstrated that we don't receive enough solar
radiation globally to match our global electric power requirement, at
present levels of demand. This means it is *impossible* to use
'renewable' sources to provide all our electricity -- we *must* use up
scarce resources if we continue global power demand as at present.

That might be true only if (a) such a demonstration has scientific
weight, and (b) that solar power is the only possible renewable source
of energy. We know that's not the case - other renewables are
available, so it's quite possible that a combiation of solar + others
would be enough.

I'm sure some proper figures are available - unfortunately debates
about such things on the internet are almost universally
insufficiently rigorous sources of hard facts.

--

there are only two renewable sources of energy: solar and nuclear.
Everything else is a transfer system.

I find the word "renewable" to be a bit misleading.

The Wikipedia definition is "Renewable energy is energy which comes from
natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal
heat, which are renewable (naturally replenished)."

That sounds like a fairly mainstream definition of "renewable".

To me the difference in energy sources is between "exhaustible" and
"inexhaustible" (on our human time-scale).

The phrase "naturally replenished" refers to replenishment from a source
that will eventuall fail (but not in our lifetimes!).

Sunlight is coming from the Sun whether we use it or not. Wind and rain
are caused by sunlight. The tides are caused by the relative movements
of the Earth, Moon and Sun. Those movements will change over a very long
time. Geothermal heat will eventually be exhausted when the Earth has
cooled down, but that will not happen any time soon.

The "sustainability" difference between human-exploitable energy sources
is how long each will last.


--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

In article ,
Geoff Pearson wrote:

"Zero Tolerance" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 12:14:26 +0100, SpamTrapSeeSig
wrote:

It has been simply demonstrated that we don't receive enough solar
radiation globally to match our global electric power requirement, at
present levels of demand. This means it is *impossible* to use
'renewable' sources to provide all our electricity -- we *must* use up
scarce resources if we continue global power demand as at present.

That might be true only if (a) such a demonstration has scientific
weight, and (b) that solar power is the only possible renewable source
of energy. We know that's not the case - other renewables are
available, so it's quite possible that a combiation of solar + others
would be enough.

I'm sure some proper figures are available - unfortunately debates
about such things on the internet are almost universally
insufficiently rigorous sources of hard facts.

--

there are only two renewable sources of energy: solar and nuclear.
Everything else is a transfer system.

Is tidal energy solar? I thought it was lunar based.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.16

On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:45:55 +0100, charles
wrote:



Is tidal energy solar? I thought it was lunar based.


Both -the gravitational effects of both the sun & moon create our
tides
--
Cheers

Peter

(Reply to address is a spam trap - pse reply to the group)

On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:00:57 +0100
Peter wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:45:55 +0100, charles
wrote:



Is tidal energy solar? I thought it was lunar based.


Both -the gravitational effects of both the sun & moon create our
tides

But the energy itself actually comes from the earths rotation which is
gradually slowing down.

B2003

Brian wrote:
On Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:40:55 GMT, Paul Ratcliffe
wrote:

If we really wish to create a more egalitarian global society, that is
one in which the difference in living conditions between the poorest
and the richest is less than it is now, it follows that a
levelling-to-somewhere-in-the-the-middle process is required.

No, ******** to that. We've got where we are by having stable democratic
nations that have provided an environment for science and technology and
efficient production.

Taking Africa as an example, they are rich in natural resources, yet
despite all the help given by the west are still not operating
efficiently enough to feed and clothe their people properly. Why this is
I can't imagine, but in any case it's their own fault so there's no
reason we should be levelled down.

The third world has too many babies. They want to learn how to use
rubber johnnies like we had to. If they kept their populations stable
for a few generations and spend more time on generating wealth instead
of having little wars they'd be a lot better off.

What will probably happen eventually is that by their sheer numbers they
will present us with a serious and obvious threat. Then the west will
find an apparently morally acceptable way to kill most of them off.

Bill