[The Practician]

There will be a special place for you in heaven my son for recycling bicycles.

Honestly I'm a little more concerned about having a special place in the salvage economy if things go to shit.

[peeker01]

Sure, there will probably be a few decades of the "poor" carpooling and whatnot while the top 20% pat themselves on the back for driving "green" luxury hybrids or whatever, but in the end it will all be for naught.

Modern economies are based on mobility. If oil goes away, society will not wither away and die. Something or things will fill the void. And I don't think it will be junk bicycles.

[AgentR11]

Modern economies are based on mobility. If oil goes away, society will not wither away and die.
Something or things will fill the void. And I don't think it will be junk bicycles.

Oil isn't going away any time soon.
Price will go up a lot over time, eventually.

Hopefully will remove some of the rabble from the roads so I can enjoy less traffic when I drive, and when I bike. The slobs can walk or ride walmart junkers, or take a bus if they live in the urban wastelands. (they seem to spend more time walk-pushing walmart junkers than riding them though...I don't quite get that one.)

Really though, bicycles are quite good for short range transportation, at least for the athletically inclined. Longest transportation run on bicycle I've made was an 80 mile round trip; but that was a bit impractical. 10 mile round trips are very easy though, and often not much slower either.

[The Practician]

Modern economies are based on mobility. If oil goes away, society will not wither away and die. Something or things will fill the void. And I don't think it will be junk bicycles.

Maybe you're blind or something, but driving is already becoming less affordable for North Americans than it has been historically. I'm not saying "society" is in imminent danger of withering away and dying, but the "void" you speak of is going to filled by economic activity that requires a lower degree of mobility, not whatever vaporware du jour you care to name.

[The Practician]

The slobs can walk or ride walmart junkers, or take a bus if they live in the urban wastelands. (they seem to spend more time walk-pushing walmart junkers than riding them though...I don't quite get that one.)

Where I live, its because the bikes are so loaded down with recyclable cans and bottles there's no room to sit!

[Pretorian]

Somebody needs to tidy up their back yard.

Why?

[The Practician]

Somebody needs to tidy up their back yard.

Why?

Because if they don't, the terrorists are going to forget why they were so mad in the first place. If you don't maintain an immaculate lawn, the terrorists win

Linky in case that one went over a few peoples heads. Lawns

[misterno]

If coal is blamed for carbon dioxide emissions, then I'd like to know what the byproduct of burning natural gas is?

CH4 + 2O2 ---> CO2 + 2H2O

That's right...carbon dioxide and water.

So what's the big difference carbon emission wise in burning coal versus natural gas? None!

[SilentRunning]

If coal is blamed for carbon dioxide emissions, then I'd like to know what the byproduct of burning natural gas is?

CH4 + 2O2 ---> CO2 + 2H2O

That's right...carbon dioxide and water.

So what's the big difference carbon emission wise in burning coal versus natural gas? None!

The usual argument is that for a given unit of thermal energy, Natural gas produces less CO2 than getting the same energy from coal. That part is true.

The larger problem, however, is that methane gas itself is an even more powerful global warming gas than CO2, and producing methane involves considerable leakage of methane directly into the atmosphere.

Combine that with the water, land and air pollution from fracking, and you end up with natural gas being as bad or worse than coal.

[Econ101]

Coal is a wonderful fuel the value of which has been obscured by the political science of global warming. Certainly none of us wants hazy, smoke-filled conditions but using that as an excuse to crank down on coal to the extent it is no longer profitable is certainly overboard.

The big winner is of course natural gas. It stands ready with ample supply to satisfy the economic need, and a good green reputation to take care of the political needs.

Natural gas and nuclear are huge enemies of coal as are the enviro-left and lot of the lofos. Watch for natural gas to benefit from the political science.

The physical science tells us both are very good and efficient fuels that we produce in abundance here at home.

[Plantagenet]

Natural gas .. involves considerable leakage of methane directly into the atmosphere..... natural gas being as bad or worse than coal.

Using coal for energy involves not only more CO2 production then you get from the same amount of energy production from NG, but coal combustion also produces significant amounts of what is called "dark carbon"....soot particles that are are also strong greenhouse warming agents.

All scientific studies show that NG is cleaner then both coal and oil. In fact, the decline in US CO2 emissions is partly attributable to shifts from coal to NG in electrical power generation in the USA.

[ROCKMAN]

Actually methane is also leaked from coal mining ops. As well as occasionally blowing up miners. Coal mining ops produce a fair amount of surface pollution too. One could also include the lovely term “clean coal” into this discussion. And let's not forget those New Zealand sheep and all the methane they release.

Sorta like claiming my MS won’t kill me as fast as your cancer. LOL. It just distracts from the discussion about how we are both going to die. And the simple fact that the world will keep burning fossil fuels in one form or another IMHO.

[Tanada]

If coal is blamed for carbon dioxide emissions, then I'd like to know what the byproduct of burning natural gas is?

CH4 + 2O2 ---> CO2 + 2H2O

That's right...carbon dioxide and water.

So what's the big difference carbon emission wise in burning coal versus natural gas? None!

Coal has about C1H1 ratio, most liquid fuels are around C1H2 and most gasses are closer and closer to C1H4, Methane being the lightest. Half the energy from combustion of Methane comes from the Hydrogen(more or less) while for hard coal the energy is only 25% from Hydrogen. So chemically Coal gives you three times the CO2 as Methane does per unit of energy.

[Graeme]

And I've just seen this EPA report.

US methane report further divides fracking camps

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much of a potent heat-trapping gas leaks during natural gas production, in a shift with major implications for a debate that has divided environmentalists: Does the recent boom in fracking help or hurt the fight against climate change?

Oil and gas drilling companies had pushed for the change, but there have been differing scientific estimates of the amount of methane that leaks from wells, pipelines and other facilities during production and delivery. Methane is the main component of natural gas.

The new EPA data is "kind of an earthquake" in the debate over drilling, said Michael Shellenberger, the president of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental group based in Oakland, California. "This is great news for anybody concerned about the climate and strong proof that existing technologies can be deployed to reduce methane leaks."

The scope of the EPA's revision was vast. In a mid-April report on greenhouse emissions, the agency now says that tighter pollution controls instituted by the industry resulted in an average annual decrease of 41.6 million metric tons of methane emissions from 1990 through 2010, or more than 850 million metric tons overall. That's about a 20 percent reduction from previous estimates. The agency converts the methane emissions into their equivalent in carbon dioxide, following standard scientific practice.

phys.org

[kublikhan]

Coal is a wonderful fuel the value of which has been obscured by the political science of global warming. Certainly none of us wants hazy, smoke-filled conditions but using that as an excuse to crank down on coal to the extent it is no longer profitable is certainly overboard.

The big winner is of course natural gas. It stands ready with ample supply to satisfy the economic need, and a good green reputation to take care of the political needs.

Natural gas and nuclear are huge enemies of coal as are the enviro-left and lot of the lofos. Watch for natural gas to benefit from the political science.

The physical science tells us both are very good and efficient fuels that we produce in abundance here at home.

So our #1 priority should be to ensure profits keep flowing to the coal industry. Coal spitting out poisonous emissions into the environment including the air we breath, the water we drink, etc is just a niggling annoyance brought up by left leaning political scientists. Respiratory diseases, acid rain, smog so think you can't see, etc are all just the cost of doing business. The fact that the physical sciences tells us energy and profit can be extracted from coal is all we need to know. Did I get that right?

[ROCKMAN]

k - Yes, sadly, I think you're correct. At least in the eyes of the vast majority of the global population IMHO. I may have mentioned to you my own dark view of the future where as we go down the PO patch coal will become an even more dominant source of energy. You and others may not think the profit is worth the environmental costs but I don't think that consideration will rule the day. A majority of folks IMHO consider getting energy at the cheapest possible cost as their birthright. I seriously doubt a minority will change their minds.

[kublikhan]

Fortunately it's not quite that bad today. Environmental concerns do carry some weight. Even if you are correct and we do increase our coal use going forward(seems likely), I don't think we are going back to the dark days(pun intended) of the worst of coal's past, such as the "Great Smog of London". I think those niggling environment annoyances will still carry some weight, even at the expense of some profits. Occasionally, environment degradation can get so bad that the masses say enough is enough.

How the Great Smog choked London 60 years ago this week.

A thick, greasy, grimy fog descended on the city and killed 12,000 people in four days. A blanket of soot hung over the streets so thickly that visibility was reduced to a couple of yards or less. But the Great Smog was not romantic. It was murderous. People and animals suffocated in appalling numbers, making it 20th-century Britain’s worst peace-time catastrophe.

Professor Roy Parker, now a social historian, was living with his parents in Lewisham, South-East London in 1952. His father, a World War I veteran who had been gassed in the trenches, was intent on cycling to work even though the choking conditions caused severe pain in his damaged lungs. ‘He was 56 and in great distress, gasping for breath, struggling.’

Buses could not run. One driver who tried said ‘fat flakes of soot stuck to the greasy windscreen like paint’ and could not be wiped off. In order to see just a couple of yards ahead, to where his conductor was walking with a torch to light the way, he had to lean out of the window.

The scale of the pollution was incredible. Every day, 1,000 tonnes of smoke belched from London’s chimneys, emitting 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, 140 tonnes of hydrochloric acid and 14 tonnes of fluorine compounds.

Even more deadly, 800 tonnes of sulphuric acid was formed as sulphur dioxide coming from chimneys mixed with moisture in the air. The acid burned the back of the throat, bringing on choking fits. It caused inflammation of the lungs, especially in children, the old and people with bronchial illness.

Thousands died, suffocating from within. As the death toll mounted, undertakers ran out of coffins. More than 100,000 people suffered such health problems as bronchitis and pneumonia. Some estimates suggest a further 8,000 may have died in the weeks and months after it.

At the Middlesex Hospital, off Tottenham Court Road, where he was resident medical officer, Acheson saw an unstoppable tide of admissions. ‘Within a few days, patients with acute respiratory distress spilled over into all wards — they were in the surgical wards, and even in the obstetric wards, and as the majority were men, room had to be found in some of the women’s wards. The supply of oxygen was stretched to the limit.’

Nothing could keep the smog out and as it oozed indoors, it left a film of black over every surface. It even closed cinemas — the black pall made it impossible to see the screens.

There were smogs again, but never so bad. A campaign by backbench MPs forced the introduction of the Clean Air Act in 1956. It enforced the use of smokeless fuels in homes, and ordered the relocation of power stations further from cities. London would never again see the return of a fog as choking, blinding and terrifying as the Great Smog which suffocated the capital city 60 years ago.

The pea souper that killed 12,000: How the Great Smog choked London 60 years ago this week

[Econ101]

Why is the world getting colder?

[diemos]

Energy is wealth.

Therefore everything that can be dug up and burned will be dug up and burned.

The only way economically extractable carbon will be left in the ground is if everyone voluntarily chooses to be poor.

Given human nature, not going to happen.