"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
08/15/2018 at 09:28 • Filed to: interesting, climate change
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"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
08/15/2018 at 09:28 • Filed to: interesting, climate change | 2
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!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
LOREM IPSUM
> pip bip - choose Corrour
08/15/2018 at 09:36 |
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I’m still waiting on that next ice age they were promising us in the 70's.
... because it's been too damn hot lately.
fintail
> LOREM IPSUM
08/15/2018 at 09:49 |
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By the predictions of that era, we’re supposed to be out of oil by now, too.
MrDakka
> LOREM IPSUM
08/15/2018 at 09:57 |
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That would’ve only happened if we continued to pollute more particulates, but since we developed better cleaner more efficient engines/powerplants, no more global cooling.
Now whether trading global warming for black lung, cancer and a whole host of other medical probl ems is worth it is up to you.
KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time
> pip bip - choose Corrour
08/15/2018 at 10:02 |
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#FakeNews!
It looks photoshopped, I can tell by the pixels
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LOREM IPSUM
> MrDakka
08/15/2018 at 10:03 |
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Ya win some ya lose some, I guess.
My bird IS the word
> pip bip - choose Corrour
08/15/2018 at 10:32 |
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I think I'm gonna need a snopes report on that.
Berang
> pip bip - choose Corrour
08/15/2018 at 10:42 |
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Original source of this blurb is a Popular Mechanics article.
Interesting for what it gets right, amusing for what it doesn’t.
Quadradeuce
> My bird IS the word
08/15/2018 at 10:45 |
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It is legit. However, I’ve always wondered how 2Bn tons of coal can produce 7Bn tons of CO2.
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> fintail
08/15/2018 at 10:54 |
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There’s no accounting for human ingenuity.
Will be very interesting if/when we figure out how to make capacitors that make “storage” of electricity more feasible on a large scale.
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fintail
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/15/2018 at 11:19 |
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500 mile range in an affordable normal looking car (and some better charging infrastructure) would be a big deal.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> fintail
08/15/2018 at 11:29 |
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Yup. If it was easy, we’d already be there.
It’s very, very hard to beat the energy density, portability & storability of liquid hydrocarbons.
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My bird IS the word
> Quadradeuce
08/15/2018 at 12:39 |
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Hence, w
hy I think it is BS
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Quadradeuce
> My bird IS the word
08/15/2018 at 12:48 |
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I’ve always noticed this discrepancy when CO2 emissions are reported. The CO2 tonnage always far exceeds the tonnage of the thing that produced it. Iffin I remember my high school and college physics right, you cannot create mass, especially if releasing energy in the process.
I’m sure this is some sort of BS apples to oranges situation.
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My bird IS the word
> Quadradeuce
08/15/2018 at 12:59 |
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I mean it’s possible that the chemical reaction of burning combines oxygen in the air with the carbon atoms to create more weight, but I don’t know enough chemistry to be certain
DipodomysDeserti
> Quadradeuce
08/15/2018 at 13:11 |
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Bitumous coal can be up to 90% carbon, so it looks like they are just assuming it’s 100% carbon. Every atom of carbon combines with a molecule of O2 to form CO2, and O2 has a molar mass that is almost 3x more than carbon (about 32g/mol vs 12g/mol) . Thus, CO2 has a mass that is almost 4x more than carbon (46g/mol vs 12g/mol). So, their figure is pretty close. #stoichiometry
duurtlang
> DipodomysDeserti
08/15/2018 at 13:55 |
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Exactly. It’s not just the weight of the fuel, you need to add the weight of the oxygen (out of air) that’s being burnt too.
So, to put it simply: 1 atom of C arbon (12 g/mol) bands to two atoms of O xy gen ( 16 g/mol, each ). Th is oxygen comes from air, not from the fuel source . 12 + 16+16 = 44 g/mol. So, if the theoretical fuel would consist of 100% carbon (which it won’t) and this C hypothetically burns into 100% CO2, there will be 44/12= 3.7 times more weight (CO2) coming out than you’ve put in (C) in fuel alone
WRXforScience
> Quadradeuce
08/15/2018 at 13:56 |
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The O2 is oxygen and it comes from the air. The oxygen component accounts for 2.5x as much mass as the carbon (2x 16g per mol vs 12g/mol).
2x2.5=5
5+2=7
Because Science!
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Quadradeuce
> WRXforScience
08/15/2018 at 14:24 |
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Perfect explanation . Now, how much of the carbon from burning coal is released as gas, and what percentage of a ton of coal is carbon?
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WRXforScience
> Quadradeuce
08/15/2018 at 15:03 |
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That depends on a number of factors, if your furnace is hot enough and has a good enough oxygen supply and your coal is high quality, you can turn nearly all of the coal into carbon dioxide.
There are also multiple types of coal, but the most commonly used varieties are 80-90% carbon (the better the coal the more carbon, the best types are around 95% carbon). The rest of the coal is a mix of Hydrogen, Sulfur, Oxygen, and Nitrogen. The sulfur makes mostly sulfur dioxide which is what causes acid rain, the nitrogen makes NOx particulates which are another form of air pollution. The hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water (steam) and are the only components of coal that aren’t major pollutants.
Whatever doesn’t completely burn turns into coal ash (about 10% of the coal) and that contains awful heavy metals and radioactive thorium and uranium. Fun fact, the average coal plant releases more radiation in a week than nuclear plants are allowed to release in a year.
Coal is one of the worst things you could burn as far as environmental and health impacts. The only reason it’s been popular is how abundant and cheap it was. Coal’s decline has been primarily due to the reduction in cost of natural gas, which coincidentally burns more cleanly than coal (a large fraction of the US CO2 reduction was a result of simply switching from coal to natural gas (natural gas is mostly methane CH4).
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Quadradeuce
> WRXforScience
08/15/2018 at 15:09 |
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Around here in WI we are switching many of our coal plants to NG. The last 2 coal generating units here in Green Bay are being shut down in the next 6 months, and I would imagine the goal is to only have the two most recently built plants in the state to continue burning coal in the long run. That doesn’t count the many coal plants
at private factories around the state. We still have a commercial coal pile here in Green Bay! You could still heat your house with coal if so inclined.
Let’s all just hope Lockhead Martin comes up with that fusion reactor...
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WRXforScience
> Quadradeuce
08/15/2018 at 15:33 |
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Solar and wind are already cost competitive with coal, we don’t even need new technology to abandon coal entirely.
Coal mining employs few people (most were already fired/retired in the 80' s-90's due to increasing automation and decreasing demand). There are about 50k coal mining jobs in the US. There are 13k S tarbucks in the US, so there are more people making Frapaccinos than mining coal.
Coal jobs are dirty and dangerous, the pay is only good because there are no education requirements (Coal miners make about the same as other heavy equipment operators). Now, if a coal miner switched to being a solar panel installer, they’d be taking a pay cut of $1-$4/hr; however, the solar jobs have more room for advancement and offer higher paying positions with additional training and certifications.
There are about 260k jobs in the solar industry and last year more solar jobs were created than the total number of coal mining jobs.
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DipodomysDeserti
> duurtlang
08/15/2018 at 16:06 |
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Yep. This is stuff I teach high school sophmores, so it’s a little alarming so many adults struggle. What’s more alarming is when people have an opinion on it when they barely have a grasp of basic chemistry.
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DipodomysDeserti
> My bird IS the word
08/15/2018 at 16:09 |
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See WRXforscience and my responses. Basic high school stoichiometry will answer your queries.
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DipodomysDeserti
> WRXforScience
08/15/2018 at 16:09 |
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Stoichiometry, how does that work? And yet we expect the average person (someone who has passed high school chemistry) to understand much more complicated chemistry happening in our atmosphere/oceans/soil.
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duurtlang
> DipodomysDeserti
08/15/2018 at 16:17 |
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Exactly, I didn’t really have any more chemi stry after high school. Which is where I learned this, mostly in the late 1990s. I’m not American though, so no idea how common this knowledge is there.
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DipodomysDeserti
> DipodomysDeserti
08/15/2018 at 17:05 |
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Good on you for remembering. We learn this stuff in high school as well, but unless you really internalize it or get a related science degree you’ll never see it again.
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My bird IS the word
> DipodomysDeserti
08/15/2018 at 17:55 |
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I decided not to take honors chemistry and I am still paying for it to this day.
gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
> My bird IS the word
08/15/2018 at 22:09 |
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coal (carbon) mole weight 12g + oxygen (16g) times 2 = 44g molar mass
roughly divide 12 and 44 by 6 and for every 2bil tons of coal burnt results in @7bil tons of CO2
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My bird IS the word
> gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
08/16/2018 at 01:32 |
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It’s crazy how much weight the oxygen adds.
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DipodomysDeserti
> My bird IS the word
08/16/2018 at 03:28 |
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I don’t want to know where you went to high school where you missed out on stoichiometry by not taking honors chemistry. This is stuff we teach at a sophmore level gen chem class in Arizona, which has a pretty crappy education system. Organic chemistry (which is still taught at a pretty basic level in college and is still much more complicated than this) offers much more insight into this subject.
To those of us that have even a cursory knowledge of this, it seems you’re questioning whether 2+2=4. Scary stuff .
If you don’t know, you don’t know, can’t really fault you for that. But maybe take the sideline from the whole global warming debate when you don’t have the basics down. Way too many people, who have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about, piping in and muddying the waters in a subject that has real world consequences.